


When I am Fit to Speak

by TehanuFromEarthsea



Series: Kintsukuroi, or, The Redemption of Kylo Ren [1]
Category: Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Enemies to Friends to Lovers, F/M, Freedom is the Oxygen of Love, It's not Rey's job to fix Kylo, Kylo Ren Redemption, Learning to be Human, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-16
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-05-27 00:26:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 53
Words: 87,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6261889
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TehanuFromEarthsea/pseuds/TehanuFromEarthsea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Somewhere hidden from the eyes of the galaxy is a hidden centre of government, the First Order Palace. Kylo is sent there to recover and to learn the subtle Force skills he'll need to find Rey. Recovery from his physical injuries is easy, but Rey has left him with other wounds that are harder to heal. </p>
<p>The Palace is awash with ambition and petty intrigues. Of course slaves and Palace functionaries are beneath Kylo's notice -until events force him to engage with them.</p>
<p>Meanwhile Rey seems no more than a distant, shining star...and a nagging voice in his head.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Debacle

In the darkness, the vibration of a ship’s engine told Kylo Ren that he was in space again. The tearing pain in his hip told him that something was terribly wrong.

There was something else too, something worse, but he could not remember it. 

Kylo drifted in and out of consciousness. He was aware of a narrow bunk under him, and the ship juddering around him. Not a big vessel then - maybe a singleship? Why was he here? He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to avoid knowing the answer. It would be better to sleep.

Somebody gave him painkillers, and that was good too.

Eventually his mind cleared enough that he could take in his surroundings. He was in a darkened alcove of a singleship which was limping along, from the sound of it. He could see forward to the cockpit, where the silhouette of the pilot looked familiar.

Hux. Though why would Hux be piloting anything? He couldn’t imagine. But his guess was confirmed by the unmistakable noises coming from the pilot’s seat every now and then. Tetchy noises. Hux famously hated being in the pilot's seat, to the point that it had become something of a joke between them. Not that Kylo was in any mood to laugh. Not with the world of pain lurking behind the fog in his memory. Ready to explode and gut him like a fish. He did not want to know it, but somehow he did.

Some time later Hux swung himself out of his seat and back to where Kylo lay.

“So, you’re awake.”

“What happened?”

“The rebels blew up Starkiller Base.”

“No!”

“Yes!” Hux’s face was a white mask, beyond furious. “Completely destroyed, nothing left. And where the hell were you? Running around after that girl? Some shit about Han Solo and the Millennium Falcon?”

Oh. The girl. Han Solo. Kylo’s memory came crashing back, and if he’d thought the pain in his body was bad, it was nothing, not even a pinprick, compared to the pain of remembering. It forced the breath out of him in a grunt of agony.

“Oh no,” he whispered. "I can’t take this…"

Hux leaned in close and hissed, “If it were up to me, I would have left you on that planet to die. Luckily for you, Snoke wants to see you. I risked my life to scrape you up off the ground before it blew up, and now you’re just going to lie there and whine. What use Snoke sees in you is fucking beyond me!” He threw himself back into the cockpit and Kylo was left to stew in his own thoughts.

Which were terrible. Again and again he remembered what it had felt like to thrust the lightsabre into his father. Utterly sickening, as though he were thrusting it into himself, not Han. He had imagined the moment so often, but where was the rush of power he had dreamed of? Instead his mind returned endlessly to his father’s last look, his last touch, full of a knowledge and tenderness that utterly crushed him. Measured against that gesture, Kylo’s great sacrifice to the Dark looked like nothing more than the bravado of a child. It was the hardest thing he’d ever done, and still he was left with nothing, an empty husk. No matter how he twisted and turned his thoughts, he kept coming up against it: that immeasurable, unsuspected love and courage.

It shamed him beyond bearing.

He should be past these feelings! He should be implacable, armour-plated. Instead he felt weaker than ever.

And that girl! Rey! How was it possible to hate another human being so much and not explode from the sheer force of it? He wanted to run a lightsabre through her, see her die in pain. He could have done it. He’d had her in his power. Twice, three times, more. If only he’d acted, if only he’d made the right choices, instead of prancing about trying to win her over. He’d given her a chance, he’d practically handed her victory. What a fucking idiot. And she was so effortlessly powerful, so brimming with energy and innocence and righteousness. He hated her so much. Why couldn’t he have just cut her to pieces on Takodana and concentrated on getting the stupid droid? Then none of this would have happened, his father wouldn’t have come haring over from wherever the hell he’d been fooling around….

Which led him back to thoughts of Han Solo and their horrible, awful confrontation on the bridge.

It was like he was crucified between two poles of rage and shame. Memories of his defeat at Rey’s hands tormented him on one side, but the moment he put her out of his mind, it was filled with visions of the debacle on the bridge with his father.

And then, Hux!

Angry Hux was normal, but angry-at-Kylo Hux was something else.

Hux had always been more than star-struck with Kylo, and when they first began working together they had formed a friendship born of their shared goals, their commitment to the First Order and their pride and excitement at finally being able to serve it at such a high level.

Over time their goals had diverged. They had drifted into a rivalry for Snoke’s approval. But Kylo always knew that all he had to do was take his mask off, shake out his hair, give his long limbs a good stretch, and Hux would be undone. Hux became so he didn’t know where to look yet couldn’t look away. Kylo had that power over him, whether he cared to use it or not. Kylo knew what Hux wanted. Hux could be good company too, and it amused Kylo to lead him on sometimes.

Now Kylo was learning that even admiration one does not care for is still painful to lose.

To have Hux now despise him so utterly was like the final depth of despair; the shit sprinkles topping off the shit sandwich that was his life now. He groaned.

“Shut up!” snarled Hux from up front. Nothing but poison in his voice. 

* * *

 When Kylo next regained consciousness, he found himself in some sort of medbay. No hum of engines, so presumably he was planet-side again. There were tubes taped into his wrists. The light was very low, and he was surrounded by machines with glowing readouts that beeped calmly. Evidently he was not dying, or near death. If he screwed up his face he could feel the sting of healing skin across it. His other wounds throbbed dully, sunk deep under a blanket of painkillers.

Inside his head it was a different story. Every thought about how he’d ended up here triggered a supernova of anger and shame. The Force in him was a disordered mess. He was afraid to reach inside himself to touch it in case it carried him into the terror of one of his dreaded whirling dreams where he would completely lose control. He wanted to dig his nails into his arms, to scratch himself until he bled, to keep himself grounded in the world or take himself out of it. His arms were bandaged and he didn’t have the strength to lift them, though.

A gentle chime sounded and the light in the room came up. A human doctor entered, a short, fair, moon-faced young man. Kylo pulled his nails away from his arms. Tried to make his face a mask.

“How are you feeling, Sir?”

“Not dead. Where am I?”

“In the Palace of the First Order.”

Ah yes. The Palace was hardly strange to him, though he’d never been in its medbay before. A few years back he’d often lodged here for days or weeks, as Snoke required him or between missions. If he had a home anywhere, it was his cabin on the Finalizer. But the Palace, the centre of Snoke’s political, if not spiritual power, was a second home to which he was always drawn - where he hoped his future lay. Though he’d barely set foot in the place during the past four or five years.

Whether Snoke himself was physically present in the Palace was unknown, to Kylo at least. His vast and intimidating Throne Room of black marble was here, the original on which all copies were based. His hologram appeared there primarily. But his hologram also appeared in other rooms, less formally, for banquets and meetings. People came here, received their orders, and left, travelling in ships piloted by creatures who would not, _could not_ tell you where the Palace was.

Kylo had taken part in actions to thwart the Resistance’s efforts to find out where the Palace was, or Snoke. But he only knew what everyone knew: You boarded a secret shuttle, and then you were here.

The doctor had finished looking at the medical readouts around Kylo’s bed. “You’re doing pretty well, but it was a close thing. The smashed up hip joint is a fiddly thing to fix. You just missed a perforated bowel which would have killed you long before you got back here. Hell of a wound to clean, as it was.” He sounded very complacent for one so young. As though dragging people back from the brink of death was all in a day’s work to him.

There didn’t seem to be anything much to say. Kylo just nodded slightly to show he’d heard. He didn’t much care. In fact he might like to undo the good doctor’s work.

“The Supreme Leader wants to speak to you as soon as may be. In my professional opinion you aren’t ready yet, so let’s put it off a day or two.”

The hip wound gave an extra throb of pain. Or maybe it was his stomach clenching in fear. He didn’t want to explain any of this to Snoke. Starkiller base, the girl with the Force….What would Hux have told him by now?

“I think I might be getting a headache,” he muttered. The doctor handed him some pills and left him with instructions to rest. Kylo shut his eyes, and the whirling dream flickered at the edges of the darkness in his mind.

 


	2. 2. Bad Dreams

Sometimes Kylo felt that dreams were his oldest enemies. There were dreams that returned, whose jagged shapes he knew as well as he knew anything or anyone. He didn’t remember when the first one came, but he had been very young.

In the dream he had been playing near his parents, who were seated a little way apart from each other, laughing at something he’d said and cheering on the little toy fliers that he was making race each other. He felt warm and safe, wrapped by their love and approval.

They were in some sort of courtyard of the house that didn’t exist in real life. But as in real life, there were people in the background. Han and Leia lived in the centre of a busy political and social machine, like the binary suns of a teeming solar system. He was conscious of being the son of a noble house. All the important things in the world happened here, and the glory of it reflected onto him. And in the midst of all this activity, they had time for him too! Kylo - no, he had been Ben then - basked in the warmth of their regard.

In the dream he looked up from his toy racers to see that a crack had opened in the paving between his parents. As he watched, it grew longer and wider. Grains of sand were spilling into it, and now small pebbles, pouring into some kind of limitless darkness. He tried to warn them, but his tongue seemed to cleave to the roof of his mouth. His mother turned to laugh at something somebody behind her had said. His father was watching her. Neither of them could see the terrible, yawning gap that was eating up the ground between them. They were still talking, but their feet were sliding in, their legs stretching bizarrely and horribly as the black hole sucked them down.

Ben started to scream now. Everything was going into the crack - his parents, the people behind them, the potted shrubs and fountains, the colonnades of the courtyard. And now the crack was heading for him. White sand whirling into darkness, and he was sucked down with it. He knew he could never find his parents down there. It was a whirling chaos of white sand and ashy darkness. Black and white. Spinning, jamming his thoughts, whipping him into a state of utter terror.

The whirling dream. Sometimes that’s all he saw, the maddening storm, nothing of the courtyard or his parents. Just terror made manifest.

Over the years he learned to endure, to wait, to trust that he must wake eventually, even though he would be shaking for minutes afterwards.

But the waking world began to be less comforting. His parents sometimes seemed too big for the rooms they were in, for the room he was in. When they were happy, the world glowed so bright! But when they were angry, the very air seemed full of hidden knives. His mother was one of the smartest and funniest people in the world, and Ben loved her, but sometimes her jokes had an edge that hurt. More and more often, those jokes were aimed at his father.

Ben adored Han. Was there anyone as brave and funny and carefree as Han? Around Han, everything was exciting and nothing was a problem. It was more than mere luck, it was more than mere charm. It was as though the laws of the universe stepped aside to make way for Han, the merry trickster. Everyone wanted to be where Han was. But Han didn’t want to be in any one place for long.

Increasingly, Han was spending more and more time where Ben couldn’t go. Away in space somewhere, hauling people and things and messages to someplace else. Always back with some funny stories. Until the time when he didn’t come back when he said he would.

Leia’s worry showed itself in sharp outbursts against the people around her. She’d apologise afterwards, but for Ben the pain of her erratic, razor-sharp sallies wasn’t wiped away by her remorse. Han was very, very late, and during those long weeks, Ben took to avoiding Leia. Not only did he have no defence against her, he was starting to get brief flashes of the strangest feeling - like he was _in_ her head, feeling her feelings. He knew of course that she had the Force, and dreamed that he might find an equal power within himself. But he hadn’t imagined it could be like _this,_ this wrenching exposure to the passions of others. It was terrifying. He had secretly dreamed of having some awe-inspiring mastery due to the Force. Instead he got this horrible invasion of his mind, this loss of control. Leia didn’t seem aware of it, beyond saying distractedly once or twice, “We must get you started on some mind exercises soon. The Force is strong in our family, and we’d best be prepared in case…” But somehow she never seemed to find the time. Meanwhile the shadows of adult passions, adult jealousies, betrayals and disappointments began to blot out the sky of his world, far too large for his child’s soul to bear.

Sometimes he dreamed he was inside some vast, intricate machine with a pounding metal heart that ran erratically, shaking the walls. There were people everywhere, but he was the only one that could fix the machine. He knew with all his instincts that it was broken. Where were the tools? He ran down endless corridors, searching. All he had was a set of tiny spanners, and the failing engine was as big as a building. He cried out. Why were they all depending on him? He was nothing.

Han came home one night after Ben was in bed, two weeks later than expected. The first Ben knew of it was an awareness of raised voices in the room below him, followed by a kind of detonation inside his head unlike anything he’d ever experienced before. It catapulted him out of bed with a force of pure, burning hatred. Terrified, he ran downstairs in time to hear his mother scream in a voice he’d never heard before. He stopped on the landing, his heart sledgehammering in his chest.

“Don’t lie to me, to me of all people! Do you take me for a fool? Of course I know you weren’t stuck on Narunda - Nemalia told me the Falcon was fixed up and she’d waved you goodbye herself. Two weeks ago!”

“It was just a little adventure calling, you know how it always calls…”

Ben gasped, realising Han was in the room below. He hadn’t been able to see him from the stairs.

“Everything’s gone to hell here. We needed a reply from Ferris. You _knew_ how much this treaty depended on you bringing Ferris’ support. We couldn’t wait, the Malachis wouldn’t wait, the discussions fell apart. Because _you_ had some stupid….”

Suddenly Ben couldn’t stand it any more. He brought his fists up high and flung them out wide as though he could cast the too-big feelings out of him. Instantly, every glass and ornament in the room below shattered. Leia froze next to a table that was split from end to end. Her eyes went up to where Ben was standing on the landing, arms still raised up. He felt his feet take him slowly down the rest of the stairs, stupidly, like a puppet’s feet. It seemed like the longest walk he had ever taken, with her wide black eyes burning into him like that.

He could see his father too now, standing by the doorway. Han’s eyes had a look he’d never seen before. As though he were an absolute stranger to Ben. Then his face softened for a moment, and Ben saw a flicker of emotions too fast and complex to read. Maybe fear, maybe sadness, maybe disgust, maybe compassion. Han gave a little shrug to Ben, like it was all more than he wanted to deal with. Then his mouth tightened. “We’ll talk about this later, Leia,” he said. He turned and went out the door.

And they did, they must have talked, must have patched it up somehow. Things could seem normal again, most of the time. But Ben could never forget Han walking out that door, walking out when he needed him the most.

 

 

 

 


	3. Beginning - Palace

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meet Spikey.

* * *

 

Spikey had found a quiet place to work this morning. It was a corridor of the East Wing of the Supreme Leader’s palace. The sun streamed in through the long windows that gave onto the orchards. Spikey sat on the floor, working the grime out of the windowsills. There were miles of marble skirting and tiles to polish, so with any luck, she could be here all day, undisturbed.

It was a relief to get away from the West Wing, which had been in an uproar in recent weeks. A big military detachment had come to stay - important people, with a snarl of diplomatic and business types following in their wake. Tensions were running high. Out in the world, something was happening, Spikey supposed. Victories and defeats and the stuff of history, if the holocasts were to be believed. Here in the secluded Palace, hidden from the knowledge of the Galaxy, all it meant was more meetings and conferences and bad temper all round.

Chief among their military guests was General Hux. She’d seen him from a distance, a red-haired, black-clad figure who radiated a kind of cold rage. Spikey was not anxious to get any closer. The personal servant who’d been assigned to his room already sported a black eye and cuts across her face.

Well, at least Spikey was trusted to work autonomously. One benefit of having reached the dizzy heights of her profession, she thought sourly. Once in a while the major-domo, Vole, might type her name into a keyboard and a locator drone would come looking to see what she was doing. A screen in the Vole’s kitchen office would show what the drone saw: Spikey cleaning something. And lately, she chose to clean as far from the West Wing as possible.

Outside, a big transport ship whooshed down towards the landing field outside the Palace ramparts. Its passage raised a chorus of complaints from the howler swans in the ornamental lake. The big birds’ eerie notes reminded Spikey of the opening to one of the great Laments she had learned in childhood.

_A child rode out one midsummer morning, the sun blazed in his hair_  
_A man returned with the autumn leaves, blood flew from his hands_  
_All the rains of winter will not wash out my heart…._

Damn, she could not remember the rest. If she’d had the strings of a chitarra under her hands, the words would have come back to her, she was sure. But she did not, and probably never would. Instead, she had this bucket of water and some grimy cloths.

Droids could have cleaned these tiles faster and better. A simple cleaning robot could do the job in half the time. But what was the point of power, if not to make people miserable? How could Snoke enjoy his reign, unless he could see countless unwilling slaves labouring under him?

A suffocating weight of boredom settled over Spikey, and the day stretched endlessly like the marble halls she cleaned. She wished she was on one of those fast fliers she saw rising into the sky, day after day. Going anywhere, she didn’t care. She’d burn the palace to the ground first, though.

 

* * *

 

  
Vole caught sight of Spikey when she skulked into the big kitchen looking for lunch.  
“You. There’s a stack of trays over there. Polish them.” Spikey took a hunk of Awful Bread with her to the alcove where he was pointing. No time to look for anything better. She chewed on it dispiritedly as she worked over the trays.

Vole was having a great old gossip with his boss Match, also known as Master of the East Wing.

“So, we need another room made ready. One of Snoke’s proteges is ready to come out of the hospital. One of his favourites, so find somewhere nice for him.”

“Why can’t he stay over in the West Wing with all the others?”

“Because, between you and me, he’s a completely mental rathtar who smashes up everything with a lightsabre if you look at him the wrong way. Tar-shan doesn’t want him anywhere near his precious zirvanian tapestries and Macrid Empire chairs.”

Spikey, listening idly, wondered how the Master of the West Wing, Tar-shan, managed to wield so much influence. He seemed like a fussy, mild-mannered old man with a passion for antiques. Yet somehow Tar-shan could get this important but inconvenient guest relegated to the less-fashionable side of the Palace. What a pain in the arse. Match and Vole were looking less than pleased.

Not for the first time, Spikey wondered at the web of feuds and alliances that bound the world of the Palace servants. People’s loyalties often skirted the official chains of command. People with big titles blustered ineffectually while nobodies got their way. She wished she had the gift, but the whole art of influencing the immediate powers in her life remained opaque to her. Vole certainly didn’t like her.

“Well, make sure he’s got good servants anyway,” continued Match.

“No way,” said Vole. “I’m sick of my best staff getting killed or maimed by Snoke’s special projects. It’s a waste of training.”

“Well, pick somebody you won’t miss too much, then.”

“I have just the person.” Raising his voice, Vole called her over. “I have a new assignment for you.” Vole’s sweaty face was alive with malice; he was watching Spikey carefully to enjoy her reaction. “Go clean out Room 25 and get it ready for a new guest. You’re room servant for Kylo Ren.”

Spikey had never appreciated how much Vole disliked her. He was chewing his lower lip with delight, relishing her dismay. “You won’t want to fuck this one up.”

Match swung himself off the table he was sitting on. “True words, my friend,” he tossed over his shoulder as he strolled out, grinning.

Spikey took a deep breath and followed him out, gritting her teeth. Really, it was just another cleaning assignment. That was the best way to look at it.

How she hated them all.

 

 


	4. Snoke - First Interview

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sooner or later Kylo has to tell Snoke what happened on Starkiller Base. "Find Rey," he says. Does he even know who Rey is? Maybe...
> 
>  

*

A few days later Kylo was ready to be discharged. He could sit up, get up, and stay on his feet for a few minutes. The main doctor came in that morning, followed by the flock of droids he liked to consult. Kylo hated having them discussing his health in front of him. Lording it over him with their knowledge. He wanted to rip their machines out of the walls. But Snoke required him to be here, healing, and so he endured it all in silence: the shame, his weakness on display.

Today there was a tall claw-handed droid with them — an escort of some kind. It was pulling a portable holocaster.

“The Supreme Leader will talk to you today on the holo,” the doctor said. “I’ve said you’re not well enough to go to the Throne Room. After that, you’ll go to the rooms in the East Wing where you’ll be lodging. I’ll check on you every day to make sure your recovery is proceeding as it should.”

Kylo swallowed a sudden lump in his throat and nodded. He climbed stiffly out of bed, pain stabbing his hip. The escort droid held out a robe for him to wear.

The doctor tapped on the holo and the whole party exited, leaving him alone with its cold glow. It gave a flicker of static and then suddenly Snoke appeared to be there in the room with him. Kylo bowed. Even if it had not been protocol, he didn’t think he could have met his eyes right now.

“Look at me,” Snoke ordered. It was impossible to tell anything from his voice, which was as cool and detached as usual. Kylo looked up. Snoke was watching him curiously. If there was anger or disappointment, he was hiding it for now. In fact, his voice sounded almost gentle. “Tell me what happened on Starkiller Base.”

There was no point hiding any of it from Snoke. If Snoke annihilated him right there, it would be the best thing possible, he thought. He told him the whole sorry tale. How he’d killed his father, and yet the Dark had not come to him, had not filled him with enough power to defeat the girl. Nor had it warned him of the Wookiee’s bowcaster bolt, cleaving the air to spit him. And then there was his final, catastrophic miscalculation. His cack-handed attempt to win the girl over to their side when he could have shoved her into a crevasse and goodbye.

He could have walked over and picked up his grandfather’s lightsabre when the girl’s companion, the traitor, dropped it in the snow. Instead of trying to Force-call it to his hands. Walked over, picked it up and cut both those sorry scumbags in two. And finish. But no……

“I am so sorry I have failed you, Supreme Leader,” he finished, his voice dried to a whisper. “I don’t know what I can possibly do to atone for my errors, but whatever I can do, I will try to do.” This felt more like a rote formula as he said it. He really didn’t care that much. It didn’t seem possible to continue after this. He was a broken tool, of no use to Snoke, and no use to himself.

“Is there anything more you want to tell?”

Kylo thought he'd vomited up all his shame and failure. But stories are not easy to tell completely. What he felt when his father died, or when he was face to face with that warrior girl, and she called the Force over to her side to defeat him….He couldn’t find the words. He swallowed and shook his head. He was aware he had not told the whole truth, but he could find no way to untie the hard knots of feeling and thought in him and offer them up to Snoke.

Snoke considered him for a while. At last he said, “Killing your father is no small thing. Do not discount that. The way to the Force is never a simple transaction. A sacrifice has been made, and it will count in the balance. Not always in the ways we want or expect.”

Kylo nodded, trying to understand.

“And the girl,” Snoke continued. “She has a name?”

“The traitor called her, called out a name. It sounded like ‘Rey’”

“So. Rey of Jakku. Newly awakened to the Force. Well, so the Force likes to keep things even. As you are powerful, so will be your adversary. This, I should have known. The mistake was mine, for not moving faster to prepare you for such an eventuality.”

Kylo raised his eyes from his study of the floor. Snoke looked……displeased? It was hard to tell.

“So, she must be found, and we must bend her to our purpose or destroy her…..” said Snoke musingly. “We believe she’s looking for Skywalker, of course. She’ll have the map, and the Resistance will surely send her to find him. To be trained by the last Jedi….that makes sense. And this is one of those inconvenient times when we have not managed to tag one of their ships with a tracker.”

“The Millennium Falcon again?” guessed Kylo, horrified. He’d suddenly realised the girl - Rey - was probably flying his father’s ship. He felt ill.

“That ship seems to maintain an unfortunate connection with your life, does it not?” Snoke said, sounding almost amused.

This was one of the worst things about Snoke: how much pleasure he took in one’s sufferings. _Harden up,_ Kylo thought. He’d settle his score with her one day, if Snoke allowed it. _Live for that day._

Then suddenly Snoke was in Kylo’s mind, forcing its way in. Kylo gasped and grabbed blindly at the edge of the bed next to him, trying to keep his feet. It felt like some vast, centurion old tree was suddenly lodged in his brain, its winding roots seeking and probing and tangling.

He must not fear the pain, he must not...

Snoke seemed to replay the moment when Kylo’s lightsaber thrust into Han’s body, as though wanting to savour the sensation again and again. Kylo waited it out, uncomplaining, and received his reward: the glow of Snoke’s approval, its warm benison filling him with new confidence. Even though somewhere a traitor part of him was crying, _But it wasn’t like that! It didn’t feel like that at all._

Snoke withdrew, apparently satisfied. His eyes, looking into Kylo’s, were lambent with benevolence. “You have a link with the girl. You will be able to find her when the time comes. For now, you must stay here to recover your strength, and then you will receive further training. We will talk more on that later.” Snoke rose and turned to go, wherever he was in the real world. Just before the holo connection flicked off he paused and said over his shoulder, “You have failed twice. Unfortunate as that is, it is no bad thing if the opposition is led to underestimate your power.”

Kylo left feeling simultaneously crushed and comforted. Unworthy as he was, he was still Snoke’s chosen one, he thought. He’d had nightmares that Snoke would not only punish him, but cast him aside. Best swallow his pride, as he didn’t have much to be proud of right now, and do all he could to make Snoke proud of his disciple. A wise leader always sought to find value in anything, he supposed. Even something like Kylo’s catastrophic performance on Starkiller Base. Make that the ex-Starkiller Base. Kylo gulped. They hadn’t even discussed that!

The escort droid returned soon after, this time guiding a floating palanquin. Kylo lowered himself into it shakily and allowed the droid to take him to his new quarters.

 

* * *

 

The interview with Snoke left Kylo wrung out. He had barely enough energy to take note of his surroundings ( _Always take note of your surroundings! It could save your life!!!_ said the voice of his training, in his head.) Okay. So. A suite of rooms with big windows opening onto a garden courtyard. Everything done in an antique, comfortable style, suitable for a gentleman of a bygone era. Lots of dark chunky exposed wood and thick fabric in muted colours, and all the shiny tech tucked away out of sight. It felt like a different wing of the Palace to his normal lodgings. Maybe a sign he was going to be here longer?

A big, smiling man with a bluff, shiny face came in shortly afterwards and introduced himself as Vole, the majordomo. “I hope you will enjoy your stay with us, Sir. Any problems, the comm panel is right there.” Just as well he pointed it out, because it was disguised as a wooden nightstand, thought Kylo. “And we employ only human servants here, unless of course you have another preference. This is your room servant Spikey. She will see to anything you require.”

A small brown woman had been standing behind Vole, looking around warily. Dressed in the standard Palace servant’s black shirt and pants, she was unremarkable apart from a short plume of frizzy brown hair tied up in a ponytail. She nodded once at Kylo. Vole directed her to sit in a chair on the other side of the room, and she did so. “Sir has been unwell,” he told her. “Make sure he doesn’t need to so much as lift a finger.” Vole turned back to Kylo with a wide smile. “There, I think that will be all?” He bowed himself out of the room. Kylo rolled over, turned his face to the wall, and felt sleep take him away.

Once he’d had that first long sleep, the next few days seemed to pass in a succession of nightmares. He barely woke from one before being claimed by the next. The doctor and his droid posse visited daily and reassured him there was nothing wrong, he was healing. They gave him painkillers and meds to help him sleep. Yet he was always on the point of falling into his constant nightmare, the one he called the whirling dream, or others equally bad, dreams of his father on the bridge, of the lightsabre that eluded him.

He must have cried out sometimes, and if it was daytime the room servant was on duty and heard him. She’d shove him on the shoulder, shaking him awake. “Hey. Hey. It’s okay, you’re here, nothing’s happening,” she’d say, with a kind of rough, wary sympathy. It was embarrassing to show such weakness in front of a servant, but he could hardly fault her for pulling him out of another nightmare. Though the sense of grief and failure that skewered him when he was awake was hardly better.

The rest of the time he thought of the girl. Rey. _Find the girl,_ Snoke had said. (Think of _her_ face. Not his father’s face, falling into the dark.) He had to find the link Snoke said was there. He felt he knew her. Some instinct, straight from the secret workings of the Force, had alerted him the moment Lieutenant Mitaka mentioned her, the girl from Jakku. He had felt something as soon as he saw her, fleeing from him on Takodana. He’d been even more sure, when he tried to enter her mind. He knew this girl. But from where?

Rey. A memory came to him. As a child, or maybe he’d been a teenager, he had travelled with his mother and Uncle Luke somewhere, and they were staying on some sort of country estate. Another family was visiting there, meeting with Luke to see if their son was a candidate for Luke’s Jedi school. Kylo remembered that boy, a soft-faced lad with curly hair who later came to the academy. In fact he’d found the boy’s earnest piety really irritating. Amongst the strobing mess of his memories of the night of slaughter that had ended the Jedi school, he thought he might have killed him himself.

But the boy had had a little sister, very small, who’d been with her family on that first encounter. Wispy blonde hair, not like the adult Rey’s. But children’s hair often darkens. He’d noticed this Rey-child because she was constantly in trouble, climbing things, running off, hiding, exploring. C3PO had been tasked with keeping an eye on her, and had spent the week close to blowing all his circuits with stress. The girl was always escaping her parents, Leia, their hosts, and of course C3PO. Like Kylo, she’d been instructed to be on her best behaviour, and she wasn’t having any of it. He secretly enjoyed the amount of chaos this small, fierce person was causing, even as he minded his manners at the table and listened politely to his elders talking.

One day he came across her on top of a very high wall. It looked insanely unsafe for such a tiny child, but she was perfectly confident up there. But however she’d gotten up, she couldn’t get down. She told him so.

“Well you shouldn’t have gone up there if you couldn’t get down,” he’d said, feeling all the superiority of being that much bigger than her, and safely on the ground. “How did you think you’d get down?”

“Oh, somebody will come for me. They always do.”

“I can catch you, if you want to jump down.” It was a long way, but he thought he could use the Force to help him catch her. Just showing off a little. “Do you trust me?”

She was about to jump, but she paused, and he felt something brush against his mind. The Force, wielded by somebody bright, curious and fearless. The child. From where he stood, she was a shadow against the sun, haloed by that fair hair. She shook her head.

“One of you won’t catch me. The dark one.”

 _One of you won’t catch me. The dark one._ That remark had bothered him for ages.

Luke had come along a minute later. He was still a young man, back then. Golden. Happy and unshadowed. Children trusted him instinctively. The girl gave a squeak of delight and launched herself joyfully into the air and down to his waiting arms.

 _I could have caught her_ , Kylo had thought, feeling resentful and just a little more envious of Luke.

And more talk around the table that evening… The girl’s father. “If it all falls apart again, they’d be safe on Jakku.” Why? he’d wondered at the time. Then later the boy, Rey’s brother, had shown up at the academy. And one day, _that_ day, little Rey was there too. Why? Family visit? She was too young to be an apprentice, and nobody was treating her like she might be a potential Jedi. “Not her,” Kylo had said. “We’re only killing those with the Force.”

He’d known she had it, and apparently nobody else did. It was the first thing he’d ever lied about to Snoke, and he’d never understood why. Though Snoke could easily force his way into people’s minds, even from immense distances, once there his vision seemed less acute even than Kylo’s. He could extract the details he wanted, but others escaped him. He’d never noticed this little girl in Kylo’s memories. Kylo didn’t know if she was important. For years, though, he dreamed that she jumped, and he caught her, and those dreams were comforting ones.

Now, in his soured and painful present, he lay still, trying to send his mind out towards perhaps this same Rey. The wary, defiant girl that hadn’t trusted him even as a child, and despised him now. No point romanticising that. She was his enemy, and he must find her. So how did this link work, that Snoke spoke of? Did distance matter to it?

He felt the low hum of all the minds in the Palace. Quite a few Force-sensitive ones, if he cared to look. Of course Snoke collected such people, and Kylo would not be the only person he was training. But the girl, the girl. How to find the girl, when she was probably light-years away? How would he ever send the Force out that far? It seemed impossible. He drew back, exhausted.

With the Force he could sense something else coming from very nearby. The servant in the room. She had something that was not the Force, but more like a low hum or flicker. The mental equivalent of an appliance running on standby, something with a faulty circuit. A few people had it, he’d never known why. He’d probed some of them and still didn’t know what it was or what it did, if anything. Another thing to ask Snoke. He would know.

Kylo fell asleep. The whirling dream brushed the edge of his mind with terror.


	5. Raging Mouse

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the hidden First Order Palace, Kylo Ren sometimes feels like he is surrounded by idiots. Spikey sometimes feels like she'd rather die than keep working there. Kylo Ren might just grant that particular wish
> 
>    
> * * *

Three days into Spikey’s new assignment, things were going better than one would expect. She was lounging on the porch of Room 25, in the deep-walled garden that made a green oasis even now, in the dusty winds of summer. There was a peaceful insect hum and the planet’s reddish sun cast a rich light on the ancient stone walls and statues of the place. It was boring as anything, but so far harmless.

Her charge had barely moved or spoken. He had nightmares, from which she cautiously shook him awake. Each time he stared at her wildly, eyes full of black lightning, expecting somebody else. Spikey became accustomed to it, and no longer recoiled. She found his pillow wet sometimes - with tears? Judging by the furious looks he gave her, it would be lethal to let on that she’d seen that. Once or twice as he slept she studied the long, pale face, with its eyelids bruised by bad dreams. A recent scar marked his face. He’d been lucky not to lose an eye. As it was, it didn’t look too bad.

In sleep, it was difficult to tell whether the lines around his mouth were caused by bitterness or pain, she thought. That was true of all people, good or bad. Otherwise it would have been a very handsome face, if somewhat extreme. A face made for expressing big emotions. Bold nose, big mouth, a thick mass of hair that showed startlingly black against his chalky skin. No doubt some fine lady somewhere wanted to run their fingers through that, she thought. Though who would dare? When he woke, he seethed with suppressed feeling, long fingers twitching dangerously. An injured animal caught in a trap.

Right now his hair was lank with sweat. He had a fever that needed to break. Probably a medical droid should have been left to watch over him at night, when Spikey wasn’t there.

Spikey brought him meals which he barely touched, flicked a duster over the chunky neo-rustic furniture, and secretly coveted the shelf of leather-bound old-style books that filled a wall shelf. Somebody had decided that very old books would add the correct touch of restrained luxury and seriousness to the room. Spikey badly wanted to look at them. But something in her new charge’s stone-cold gaze restrained her from touching a single one.

Dozing a little in the sun, she woke with a start when a shadow fell across her. It was Vole. Sheesh. He must have come in via the garden gate.

“What are you doing here? Your orders were very clear. You are to sit IN THE ROOM and be ready to take orders at ANY TIME.”

“There’s a call button. I’m wearing a call bracelet. Anyway, he’s asleep all the time. He doesn’t need me watching him.”

“He’s just come out of the medical wing.”

“If he’s that sick there should be a nurse watching him, not me. How would I know if he’s getting worse? He just lies there.”

“Get in there and SIT WHERE I TOLD YOU! It’s not enough to provide service, people of his rank expect to SEE somebody who is WAITING for commands with EVERY FIBRE OF THEIR ATTENTION!”

That old thing again. Power is useless unless someone is seen to be grovelling in its presence, Spikey thought. “The what? This is such bullshit…..!” she began, but she hadn’t reckoned with Vole carrying a taser-switch. He grabbed her by the neck, pushed her down and slashed her back four or five times. Enraged beyond any rational thought, Spikey tried to lunge for his feet at the same time as he was trying to kick her. Vole lost his balance but regained it by stomping on her head.

Why did it always end this way?

When Spikey had staggered to her feet, he pointed into the room. “Don’t let me find you anywhere else.” She curled her lip and limped back inside to avoid another blow. He wouldn’t dare follow and continue the ugly scene in there.

She wasn’t sure how much Kylo had heard. But he was awake, half sitting up and looking pissed off. Spikey plumped herself down on her chair with a snarl.

She felt over her shoulder and when she pulled her hand back into view it was covered in blood. She pulled a face at it, then caught an angry look from Kylo.

“Oh, what are you staring at! I’ve been ordered to sit in here and bleed all over your nice chair.”

“What,” said Kylo Ren flatly.

“Sorry, I meant to say I exist to serve. Your wish is my command,” said Spikey, equally flatly. Fuck them all, she thought.

Kylo started up onto one elbow, going from chilly to furious in five seconds flat. “You! You keep up that attitude and I’ll end your miserable existence, you disrespectful mouthy little rat!”

Spikey flared up right back. “Fuck it. I don’t even care. You can strike me dead this instant, you’ll save me a lifetime of this crap. Getting abused by the likes of Vole. Yeah, sign me out on that!”

Spikey was glaring at him now, meeting that mad, dead-furious stare with her own. She had the feeling like when you stand on the edge of the cliff, and the abyss pulls and pulls at you and you want to jump. No, she had jumped! She had already launched, was falling. He was raising his hand to strike, maybe the terrible Force choke, or he was going to say something…

“Make it quick,” she said.

He dropped his hand with a look of disgust, as though she wasn’t worth the effort, or he didn’t have the energy after all.

“I don’t want a serving rat sitting there all day, looking like that,” Kylo said.

“So, are you ordering me outside?”

Kylo shut his eyes with a look of weary disgust and jerked a thumb at the door.

Spikey sprang to her feet and practically danced out the door. The air bloomed with life back into her lungs as she began to breathe again. Her blood was pounding in her veins, and even the bright pain of the cuts on her back seemed sweet.

This was why she did it - why she danced on the precipice, courted the danger. It was the only time she felt alive. The suffocating fog of tedium and loneliness lifted for a time, and she burned with life. She baited people who should _never_ be crossed, and one day she would pay for it. Not today though, not today!

She swiped a book from the shelf as she passed. The one with the lovely red and gold cover.

“Stop!” said Kylo just as she reached the door. Her heart jumped in her throat. Had she gone too far now?

“Last time I was here, I had a good servant. Tall girl with red hair.”

“Kareen?” said Spikey, very softly. Kylo’s remark seemed to suck all the air out of the room for her.

“Yes. I want _her_ back.”

“We’d all like that!” said Spikey, as rage suddenly returned to lodge in her chest. She paused to recover her calm before going on in a quieter voice. “She was the best. Friendly, cared about people, good at her job and a real sweetie. Just a beautiful girl,” she finished. She looked down on Kylo who had a sour I-don’t-want-to-hear-you look. _Yeah, you’re going to hear me out,_ she thought. “A client killed her. Some jerk politician’s wife, actually. Jealous of her looks, they say.”

“Get out.”

No reprisals! She was in love with life! She’d launched on wings of pure anger, and twice today they had carried her past the reaper’s scythe.

Vole came back to check on her not five minutes later, the bastard. His face went purple with anger and disbelief, seeing her curled up happily in the sun again, reading. He took a breath to say something, but swallowed it in the face of Spikey’s brand new confidence, and the shit-eating grin it put on her face.

“Kylo Ren _ordered_ me to sit out here. You can talk to him about it if you like, but I have the impression he would rather be left alone,” she said mildly. Nevertheless, he had to turn tail.

It was a good book. Old poetry and short stories, some she remembered from childhood, some new to her. You could set some of them to music, Spikey thought.

 


	6. Helmet

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's not safe to disrespect some things around Kylo Ren
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

What was so difficult about getting through the door, Kylo wondered, as somebody knocked and fumbled their way in. No surprise to see it was the dreadful servant. He’d fallen asleep before getting her replaced. She was carrying a couple of boxes and guiding a baggage glider with one foot. It looked like his clothes and personal effects had arrived from the Finalizer.

“Good morning,” she said.

“Is it?” Kylo wasn’t even up yet. He’d had a terrible night’s sleep, as though his returning strength was only feeding his dreams.

“So far.” She gave the glider a kick and it came to rest hovering near the fussily carved cupboards at one end of the room. “I’ll fetch breakfast then I can help you unpack these if you want.” She seemed to hope they could pretend her little outburst the day before had never happened. He was slightly pleased to see that she was still limping from Vole’s thrashing, and an ugly bruise was visible spreading up the back of her neck from her shoulder. He should crush this person, this irritant! Why should he be the only person to suffer in this life? Every single morning he woke up and had to remember his father’s death, with the same sensation as though his heart was being ripped out. That pain wasn’t getting any less.

Soon the servant arrived back with breakfast. He had no appetite. Or it plain tasted bad, one or the other. He picked at the rubbery food items listlessly. The girl was opening up cases and pulling out clothes, one black thing after another. “I hear black is in, this year,” she said blandly. Before he could decide if he could detect a hint of mockery, she continued. “Do you want me to find you something more comfortable to wear? When you’re sitting around in here, I mean. A lot of this looks like it would be pretty uncomfortable while you’re healing up.”

“That might be a good idea,” he said grudgingly. Getting up, getting dressed, going anywhere or doing anything seemed completely pointless, but it was possible that he might be required to do something some time.

“Black though, right?” They locked eyes for a moment and he still couldn’t tell if she was secretly laughing or not. “I’ll see to it,” she went on quickly. She picked up one of the boxes. “What’s in thi….AAAAAARGHHH!” She shrieked and jumped on a chair as Vader’s helmet thumped on to the carpet and rolled. Kylo sat up and surprised himself with his own roar of rage. He raised his fists and everything in the room jumped. The girl was flung to the floor. She scrambled up away from the helmet with a look of terror.

“What is that!?” she squeaked breathlessly. “Oh! I see……I’m sorry, it just gave me such a fright.” She bent down and picked it up carefully, brushing carpet fluff off it. “I think it’s all right. See for yourself.”

She handed him the helmet, still looking scared. He took it from her and inspected it. There didn’t seem to be any damage. He looked at her, feeling fury building up in him again. She should be obliterated! He could reach her, crouched as she was next to the bed. It felt like his strength and power was back for the first time in weeks. Quick as lightning, he had her throat in his grip. “That was my grandfather’s helmet!” he shouted, right in her face.

She gave a tiny nod, and waited him out, completely limp. His rage subsided, replaced by a sick feeling of futility. No channel opened to the Force’s black power, there was no sense of the Dark side sluicing through him to spill death from his hands with its pitiless certainty. It was not as though his last murder had given him any satisfaction, he thought bitterly.

He wondered if the servant was used to this. Quick as he was, she’d got in a deep breath and tucked her chin well down to protect her throat. She looked stoic. But she had to be hurting now.

Then something changed in her eyes, became still. A gambler, seeing the cards’s last turn: _goodbye, Lady Luck, it was nice knowing you._ Or maybe it was, _either way, I win._

The girl really had a death wish, as she'd said herself, yesterday. He let her go with a sound of disgust. She fell to the floor and lay there, sucking in great rattling breaths. His anger turned around on itself, on him. The whole thing was just stupid. Another stupid situation. Why couldn’t he keep his dignity? He swung his feet to the floor and sat there, waiting for her to go away. Instead, after a while she turned her head to look up at him.

“Was Darth Vader really your grandfather?”

“Yes.”

“Wow.” She sat up shakily and regarded the helmet for a while. “This is….a talisman for you? I would never intend to damage such a thing. Ancestor things are important. I do understand that, and I’m sorry I dropped him.” She could barely make her voice work.

“Apology accepted.”

She bugged her eyes at him sidelong, perhaps recognising one of his grandfather’s most famous quotes. They stared at each other for a beat, both wondering if he was going to Force-choke her. Indeed he started to reach for the Force inside him. But, as happened too often lately, instead of the sure, dark current he was used to, all he could find was a splintered mess. The Force felt almost repulsive, as though he was sticking his hand into a jar of insects. He squeezed his eyes shut and released an angry breath.

“Well, so,” she rasped, after a moment’s silence. “Since I’m here, why don’t I put the helmet away. You want it safe in a cupboard, or out where you can see it?”

“Safe from clumsy idiots like you, you mean? No, put it where I can see it.” His hands were still twitching with a desire to hurt her, but there didn’t seem to be any point. His burst of energy had left him feeling sick.

“How about here?” She pointed to an alcove above the foot of the bed. “I mean, who needs a vase of dried flowers over their bed?” Seeing his dull nod, she reached over and took down the vase, and put the helmet in its place. “Okay now?” She looked at him, apparently recovering from his attack already. An indestructible weed. Some people were like that.

“I wouldn’t pick you as a big Vader fan,” he said.

“I won’t lie to you, I’m not. But…” She stared at the helmet in fascination. “What a piece of history. I can’t believe I’m looking at the actual….What’s his side of the story? He must have had his reasons. People always do.”

“I don’t need to explain his reasons to the likes of you.”

“And thus we remain ignorant,” she said crisply. “And that’s why you end up having to create this vast, expensive military machine: to hold a gun to people’s heads to make them do what you want. Persuade them your cause is right and they’ll do it themselves. Willingly and for nothing.”

Kylo shook his head in disbelief. Who did she think she was? “There’s a holocast projector right there, and if I want to listen to a lecture on politics I will turn it on. From you, I just need some kind of minimally competent room service.”

“Sorry.”

“Get out. And take this with you!” He threw his plate at her. She tried to catch it and failed, which was absolutely typical. And then he had to put up with her cleaning up the mess. He sighed and lay down with his back to the room until she was gone. Everything was just dire and he hated all of it. And himself.


	7. Food

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Even Knights of Ren need to eat. Preferably not health food. Kylo could do without the lectures on class warfare though. If the proletariat are all like Spikey, they can bloody well stay down, for all he cares.

*   *    *

 

“This big wound healed slower than we would’ve liked,” said the blond, freckly medic who had been in charge of Kylo’s recovery. “And you’re underweight. That’s not helping. You need to eat more.”

“The food tastes terrible.” And it was amazing how often, while he was eating, he would feel the exact sensation of his lightsabre sinking into his father’s chest, and he would start to retch. The doctor didn’t need to know that part, Kylo thought.

“It’s a carefully formulated balance of proteins, vitamins and nutrients. Everything we eat in the Palace is designed to promote maximum performance, as the Supreme Leader desires.”

The awful servant — Spikey? — was shoving some cleaning device around the floor behind the doctor, crashing into chair legs. Kylo looked past the doctor’s calm, professionally concerned face to see her snort and roll her eyes.

“I don’t think we need to monitor it any more," said the doctor. "Your temperature’s normal. How’s the pain? Are you still taking the pain medications?”

Kylo had stopped, and his head felt clear for the first time in weeks. He said so.

“Okay, then that should be all you need from us now. Just eat more.” The doctor packed up his bags and went to the door. “Congratulations on a successful recovery.”

Another successful day for him, thought Kylo, sitting up carefully. Meanwhile he was lying here stewing day after day, wondering what Snoke had planned for him. Was he simply expected to lie there and think of Rey? His thoughts about Rey were taking on a disturbing cast lately, and he was certainly no closer to finding any mental link with her.

Spikey’s cleaning was annoying, so he jerked his thumb at the door. “You can get out too.”

“Yeah, I have to get lunch anyway.”

“Oh I can hardly wait.”

Kylo wondered when this new food regime had started. Things had been normal enough last time he had lodged here for any length of time, but that was almost five years ago. Lately he’d overheard a lot of talk on board the Finalizer about nutrient purity and the virtues of certain wonder foods, so maybe this was some widespread First Order concern.

Kylo dressed himself slowly in a flowing black tunic and loose pants that didn’t hurt the aching scar in his hip. He had to keep stopping for weakness. It cost him a few twinges of pain to bend and stretch even that much, but of course he’d suffered worse in the past. Pain was a gateway to the dark side, after all: the commonest and most used. It could be overcome with willpower.

The girl came back with a tray of food. She set it down on the table and opened the lid on the hotbox. Kylo sat down and picked at the squishy flan in the middle of the biggest plate. “This tastes disgusting.”

“It’s a carefully composed complete food created according to the latest scientific research,” said Spikey, with the air of one reading a bad script.

“It’s foul. I can’t eat this!”

“Hmm. Excuse me.” Spikey sat opposite him, warily, then leaned over and snagged a piece of vegetable and put it in her mouth. She pulled a face. “What in all the pits of Malachor’s hell is this? It’s disgusting.”

She scooped up a bit of the flan thing and tasted it. “Gungan gods! What is this even trying to be? Snot pudding?”

She nibbled a bit of the beige grain on the side of the plate. “Apparently flavoured with earwax.” Kylo let out a sudden laugh, surprised. She was absolutely right.

Laughing hurt though. A new sensation where the bowcaster bolt had hit him. He hadn’t laughed since. It made a weak feeling in the pit of his stomach, and he stopped.

Spikey held up a small translucent grey fruit against the light, staring at it suspiciously before trying it. “That is not completely terrible, though the colour works against it.”

Kylo suppressed another smile. His own face, ambushing him! She gave him back an amused grimace which turned into a long stare, as though weighing up some decision. He could read something in her face too, guarded but not hostile. Abruptly she stood up. “Eat the grey things if you can, they’re not too bad, while I go look for something better.” She tipped the fruits into an ornamental bowl, handed them to him, and scooped up the hotbox. Then she was out the door with a slam. Kylo picked at the grey globes. Not bad, though the salty overtones were a bit challenging.

Spikey was back within the hour, and this time when she lifted the lid on the hotbox, a mouthwatering smell rolled out on a waft of steam. Some kind of parcels stuffed with meaty chunks. A rich gravy leaked out of them, redolent of spices. Kylo tried them. They were as delicious as they smelled. Crisp green vegetables on the side. Spikey watched him covertly while she poured a jug of water into a glass and cracked a black fruit into it deftly. The bright yellow flesh dribbled in and turned a pale cloudy green when it touched the water, releasing a sweet, astringent scent. She lifted the lid on a little pot and scattered small crunchy bits across vegetables. Halfway through the meal Kylo’s appetite properly awoke and he found himself bolting down every morsel.

“From now on, bring me more of this.”

Spikey gave him a calculating look. “Okay, but don’t tell anyone.”

“Where did you get it from?”

“It’s what I eat, when I have time.”

“What? The servants eat better than their masters?”

“We can. The First Order doesn’t care what we eat. We have our own commissary and there’s a servant’s kitchen. Also the Palace orchards and hothouses have been here for centuries. They’re not going to be disestablished just because Snoke’s gone on a health kick. People have inherited titles like ‘Warden of the Imperial Orchards’ and ‘Master of the Vegetables’ and dozens of under-staff that they’re not willing to give up either.”

She looked set to give him a whole lecture on the byzantine arrangements of servant life, with a side-order of class warfare, if he didn’t shut her up. Snoke hadn’t brought him to the Palace to learn about the struggle of the proletariat, but that was about all he’d got so far. If they were all like her, they could bloody stay down for all he cared. He felt his irritation rise. “Fine. Whatever. This is acceptable. I just don’t want to see that grey sludge again. And don’t talk like that about Snoke.”

“Bongo!” she said happily. “It’s a deal. Just give me more time to get this organised.”

And that was one aspect of his life that improved from then on. Even if he was still enduring this purgatorial wait in his quarters, with no new word from Snoke.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	8. Rapport

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sympathy and light banter. Kylo Ren is not a fan of either.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

  
A week into his stay in the Palace, and Kylo was awoken from disturbed sleep by Spikey bringing breakfast, noisily. She generally failed to get through the door and put the tray down without knocking against something. Like the doorway, which was hard to miss. Kylo sat up blearily and groaned. He was still alive. He still hated himself, and the feeling made a hot heavy weight under his ribs, impossible to dislodge.

“Breakfast today is extremely nutritious and has balanced proteins for enhanced healing,” Spikey said virtuously. Then she lifted the cover off the hotbox and handed him a plate of flat cakes covered in syrup. They smelled good. “Actually, no. These are tasty and packed with badness.” She flashed a quick grin at him. She had one of those mobile, overly-expressive faces that would have earned her plenty of trouble on any First Order ship.

“Oh, and I’ve been instructed to get you up and presentable. You’ll be escorted to see Snoke later.”

Kylo felt an unpleasant clenching in his gut. Snoke had been uncharacteristically merciful when they last spoke, but Kylo had been half dead at the time. Now he was supposed to be better and he had no doubt the conversation would be more serious. He still felt like hell, though. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, dreading the thought of explaining anything more to Snoke. Shutting his eyes only made fragments of the whirling dream advance behind his eyelids.

“Well, eat something,” said the girl, shooting him a look from where she was rustling around in the wardrobe, laying out clothes. “Do you want to wear one of these uniforms? I guess it’s a formal thing…..”

“Yes,” he said shortly, shovelling food. She was keeping up her end of the bargain nicely.

Spikey was feeling the fabric of the pants critically. “This is quite stiff, so I don’t know how it’ll go over your wound. We might have to wrap some bandages to protect the new skin.” She went out into the bathroom and Kylo heard the bath start to fill. Typical of Snoke’s palace: it didn’t have a “refresher”, instead it had these solidly luxurious old-fashioned analogues.

“Oh look, there’s these nice herbal healing things in the drawer here….I’ll throw some in shall I?”

He might have to kill her if she didn’t shut up.

By the time the bath was full, he was ready to go back to sleep. “Call me when it’s time to actually get up. I don’t want a bath.”

“Maybe not, but this room smells like somebody’s had a fever and sweated for a week. I need you to get up so I can change the bed anyway. Plus you’ll feel better. And even if he is a hologram, it’s not making a good impression to visit Snoke smelling like….” She stopped, obviously thinking better of it.

“Like?”

“Like something not good,” she finished cautiously, already dodging the plate he threw at her. It caught her anyway — what sort of Force user would he be if he missed? — but she didn’t seem to care. “That’s more lively now. Need help getting up?”

“From you? You’re about three feet tall.” It was proving difficult to avoid getting sucked into her — what would you call it? Banter, he supposed. Not something he heard a lot of on the Finalizer. Phasma would have put a stop to it.

He was staggeringly weak, and although he didn’t need help getting to the bath, he slid into it like a floundering fish. It was a fittingly palatial thing, with a white and gold mosaic decorating the edges. The smell of whatever she’d tipped in was actually quite reviving, and the warmth felt good. Kylo caught sight of rack of gold-mongrammed brushes and general bath paraphernalia.  
“You can scrub my back.”

There was a sound of annoyance from where Spikey was messing about making the bed. “Right now?”

“Why not? That’s your job isn’t it?” Sarlacc shit, he was going to smash something soon, he thought.   
“Yeah, I do that. Then I usually have to listen to really terrible pick-up lines.”

“Men try to pick you up? I’m amazed,” he replied, and then sucked his teeth in annoyance. Dammit! Pulled into one of these stupid exchanges again. He should ignore her.

Spikey laughed. “I know, right? Desperate or what? I mean, the Palace has a whole wing of jaw-droppingly beautiful women whose job it is to make their dreams come true.”

Despite her humour, Spikey seemed a little wary coming into the bathroom. She avoided looking at him, taking down a brush and sitting down behind him to scrub off the accumulated sweat and dead skin of long illness. But her hands were gentle enough.

“Your hair’s kind of manked up. I’ll wash it,” she said, and he relaxed further as she massaged and lathered and rinsed, sinking her fingers into it. Years of Snoke’s purgatorial training hadn’t entirely snuffed out his pride in that glossy mane, which remained one of his indulgences. She seemed to enjoy it too. “I’d kill for hair like this…..” She fanned it out into the water and rubbed his scalp with her fingertips. It felt amazing. He was disappointed when he heard her say, “OK we’re done. Ugh. Look at those toenails. I’ll get the clippers.”

He put his feet on the rim of the bath and she moved round to trim his toenails. She seemed to be blushing slightly.

“Enjoying the view?” he asked, smiling at her discomfort. She met his eyes for a moment, looking along the length of his naked body, and curled her lip in a sneer. How unwise.

“It’s amazing you’re still alive, with an attitude like that,” Kylo said. He remembered, with irritation, how his parents always insisted on being nice to servants. He would bet they never saw this kind of disrespect!

Only, the bath was so relaxing. He couldn’t be bothered summoning up the energy to retaliate right this instant.

“Mmm. And I have such a life to look forward to,” she said.

“Why in the seven Corellian hells did they assign you to me?”

“Politics,” she replied, giving him a brief glance.

“What, I’m being punished by being assigned bad servants?”

“No. Or maybe, who knows? That would be a new low point in pettiness if they did.” She looked at him again and sighed.

“Your politics isn’t the only politics. While you’re trying to take over the Galaxy or whatever you do, there’s a world of petty warfare right under your feet. In the kitchens, they’ll spend their lives pulling down somebody half a step higher up the ladder than them. They’ll stab each other for a sunnier room, a better work shift, a spot closer to the kitchen fire or to anyone with a scrap of influence.

“My immediate boss is Vole. Vole would be overjoyed if something unfortunate happened to me. He assigns me to people who are considered risky. Take that how you will.”

“Well you play right into his hands!” said Kylo. “I’m surprised you’ve survived this long. Do you just say anything that comes into your head?”

Spikey shrugged and pulled a face. Maybe yes, maybe no, maybe laughing at herself. “I doubt I’m going to rise much further in my profession. Let’s just say I lack ambition.”

She moved round and gestured for him to give her his hands so she could trim the nails. Her head was bent over her work for a minute, and then suddenly she paused. He could see her looking at the angry red parallel lines on the inside of his arms, and the older scars beneath them. He could tell she was about to say something.

“Shut up.”

She said nothing, but briefly turned her wrists round to his gaze. Old white marks crossed the skin.  
Kylo made a tidal wave in the bath as he sat up suddenly, snatching his hands away from her.

“What, you think this is some fucking club you can join? You have no idea!”

“No! I just know that nobody does _that_ for fun,” she said, sketching a gesture at his arm. Her face was level with his. Her eyes were light, almost topaz, he noticed. He glared at her until she dropped her gaze. Silently she moved round to clip the nails on his other hand.

Clip. Clip. Clip. She had hold of his fingers, clippers snicking away with precise care, head bent. Awkward silence. Often the result of having shouted at people, he realised. But sure enough, she couldn’t resist talking…

With a bitter laugh, she said, “Anyway, it was stupid. Especially when there’s other people wanting to cut at me.” She looked at him, mimed the slash across his face. “People want to fuck you up? Don’t _help_ them!”

His whole body did a shudder of hate as that other girl’s face flashed into his mind. The girl with the lightsaber.

“And _I’ll_ be one of those people slicing you up, if you don’t shut up!!” he shouted right in her face. “As far as I can see, all you do is _invite_ people to do it. Of course you don’t need to do it yourself!”

She stared at him, her expression mask-like. Regrouping.

“Good point,” she said quietly. “I don’t much care, though.”

She returned his hand gently to the water and got up to put the brush and clippers away. “Spare me your thoughts. You’re just showing your ignorance,” he said to her back. He snorted with disgust. “Philosophy from a servant!”

She snorted back. “Ha ha. I’ve heard plenty of philosophy. Mostly useless. I expect you’re not interested in examining the true nature of reality.”

He suspected she wanted him to ask more, but he wasn’t taking her bait this time. “What the hell has that got to do with anything? Get some towels or an air dryer or whatever they use here. I’m getting out.”

Spikey walked over to a tiled stall and waved a hand, triggering a burst of hot air from concealed vents. She made a ridiculous jump out of the way. “Waah! That works. I’ll leave you to it.”

Kylo hauled himself out of the water. He still felt weak, but his skin tingled pleasantly and the dull pain of his wounds seemed to have soaked away.

In the other room, Spikey was waiting ready with a bandage. She wound it around his hip to protect the tender skin over the wound. Then she helped him with the boots and belt, tunic and surcoat. It was still difficult to pull on boots especially. Spikey adopted a bland professional air, fiddling with the details of what was, after all, a complicated costume. All his previous ill temper and insults appeared to have rolled right off her, leaving no trace. Probably used to it, he thought.

They finished standing face to face, Spikey concentrating to get the shoulders and collar to sit right. He’d lost weight since he’d been injured, and nothing fitted.

Kylo’s mind was filled with thoughts of his coming meeting with Snoke. He was uncomfortably aware that his heart was beating faster than he would have liked. There was a knock on the door, making him start.

“Your escort to the throne room,” said Spikey. She looked him up and down and seemed to pick up on his nervousness. She gave a little grimace that might even have been sympathy, and clapped him encouragingly on the shoulders with a comradely air. “You’re good to go.”

Strange person.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	9. Snoke: Find Rey!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren is recovered enough to receive his next orders from Snoke. 
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo’s escorts took him to the Throne Room. He had been here a few times before. The cavernous space and the gigantic plinth were awe-inspiring as always. In the dimness, a deep, stirring music played - many voices invoking dark liturgies of power in a long-forgotten language. Something in the very air made him tremble. Everything was calculated to create an aura of ancient might and wisdom.

Even here though, Snoke did not appear in person. Kylo had never heard of anybody meeting him in the flesh. Perhaps he looked quite different, and could wander undetected among his minions, since nobody knew what he looked like, Kylo thought. Did he live in unimaginable luxury somewhere, or did he sit in a miserable stone cell in some Dark-suffused hellhole planet? Nobody knew.

But here was his hologram now, relaxing on the gigantic throne that had just flickered into being in front of him. Kylo bowed deeply.

“It is good to see you looking so much recovered,” said Snoke courteously. He was generally courteous no matter what he was doing to somebody. He had other people to deal out his violence for him. “I believe you are ready to begin your next training.”

Kylo nodded in assent. “Whatever you command.” Inside, he was far from calm. Could Snoke feel how badly Kylo was adrift? Away from the soothing rhythms of military life aboard the Finalizer, away from the active flow of carrying out Snoke’s orders. Away from the certainty that he could become a conduit for the Dark, giving himself up to its demands. He wanted it to enter him so he could go with its unstoppable current, immune to dreams and doubts. Lately, that was not happening.

“When you’ve recovered more strength, we will work on your fighting technique. I want you to be unshakeable in that. You already know a lot, your instincts are excellent and you have an imaginative style. But when your concentration is broken, you don’t fall back automatically into good form. That needs to change.

“I also want to show you some of the quieter aspects of the Force. These are not strictly Dark practices. It troubles me that you could be so seriously wounded. The medics say you were close to dying. There are techniques you can learn for healing yourself. So you will be doing some exercises that are not unlike Jedi techniques, based on meditation.”

Kylo must have looked dubious, because Snoke said, “We use whatever we can turn to our advantage. You should know that about me. I will not name a thing Dark or Light and judge its usefulness by that name alone. If it makes me win, then I will use it.

“Then there is the matter of Rey. Again, the ways of the Dark will serve us little in finding her, if she is as wedded to the Light as seems likely. You will do certain other meditations to learn how to find Force-wielders who are distant from you.

“So. In the mornings you will work with Sara Rem Nata on the quiet arts of finding and reading and manipulating people and living things. That can begin tomorrow. In the afternoons you’ll go to the Palace dojo, though not yet. You are finding it hard enough to stay on your feet.

“We’re collecting all the security footage from anyone from Niima Outpost or who has been to Jakku, so we can get an idea of who Rey is and what she’s been doing there. We’ll examine that in due course, and of course we’ve questioned people who knew her. You can see those recordings too.

“Lastly, as you can imagine the Galaxy is in an uproar since the First Order showed its hand so decisively, with the destruction of the Hosnian System. You’ll be informed of when the next weekly briefing meeting happens, so you can keep up with military and diplomatic events.

“Now go, get strong.”

Kylo bowed deeply again. This time his attention was caught by the sight of some small thing marring the polished perfection of the floor below the plinth where he stood. It looked like a twist of grass - no, small flowers, tied in a knot and desiccated by the dry air of the Throne Room. How incongruous.

Kylo made his way slowly back to his rooms. He felt almost crushed with disappointment. Clearly Snoke was changing his tactics, but he did not understand this new tack. Kylo had hoped for some kind of task, some test, some knowledge, _something_ that would help him understand and overcome his failure. Some defence against the corrosive influence of the Light that he still felt. He wanted Snoke to help him cut it away, with whatever violence necessary, for it brought him nothing but pain and regret. Instead Snoke had done everything short of offering him a fluffy pillow, a cup of tea and a hot water bottle, he thought bitterly. How was that supposed to make him stronger?

_Help me,_ he prayed. But Snoke did not respond.


	10. Sara Rem Nata

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Kylo Ren starts to learn some new approaches to the Force. Or tries to, anyway. Thinking about Rey doesn't make him happy.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The morning after his meeting with Snoke, a knock came on Kylo’s door. Spikey let in a tall, thin middle-aged woman. She had an austere face with watchful eyes and hair drawn back severely from her face and tied into a ginger braid that reached down her back. She was dressed, like Kylo, in a black tunic and soft black pants. It was difficult to tell from her clothes what her status was, though the elegance with which she wore them suggested they were made of expensive material.

“I am Sara Rem Nata,” she said, dipping her head politely. But not very far. “I am here to teach you the subtle arts of the Force.”

Kylo had heard the name before. She stood face to face with him, a little too close. He could feel her Force too, strong and hard, leaning up against his mind. He tested it, trying to reach into her and learn who she was. He felt himself sliding, grasping nothing. Gates of polished durasteel. Sara Rem Nata gave him a coldly amused glance.

“If I do my job correctly, you will do better. In time.”

Kylo nodded in acknowledgement. “I am here to learn.” _And maybe I’ll rip you to pieces when I’ve finished_ , he thought. She gave him a knowing look, sidelong.

“Then let us start. We will make a dojo, a dojo of the mind.” Sara Rem Nata looked around the room a moment, then pointed outside. “It’s less stuffy outside. Let’s work in the garden.” She looked over at Spikey, who was dusting the bookshelf. One or two gaps showed among the ranked spines of the books. “You. Go.”

Spikey nodded, picked up her call bracelet, showed it to Kylo and left without a word.

“Some people have an aura that I find annoying,” murmured Sara Rem Nata. She led Kylo out into the garden and gestured for him to sit on a rough-cut wooden bench against one of the high brick walls that surrounded the garden. Kylo was starting to find her annoying, with the arrogant way she walked in and took charge. She was supposed to be his teacher, but did she really need to be so bossy? Again, she shot him another chilly smile. How much could she read his mind? He couldn’t feel her reaching into his head, but maybe that was why her subject was called the subtle art.

She Force-pulled another bench over with a lazy flick of one hand and sat down facing him. She stared at him intently for a moment, then quickly scrubbed at her face with her palms as though to stir her thoughts.

“You can read most people?” she asked.

“Most. Not Snoke.”

She smiled thinly. “Not Snoke…..Most people though, you can read. Is it easy for you?”

Kylo thought about it. It was a strain, but he had ample power to draw on. It was simply a matter of forcing for long enough. He said so, and added, “Some people’s heads are unpleasant to be inside.”

He caught a tiny narrowing of the eyes from Sara Rem Nata. He felt a featherlight touch, her mind against his. Like a knife held ever so gently against him. But unforced. He couldn’t feel where or how she was getting in so easily. He tried to do the same to her, but was defeated by the blank smooth defences she presented.

“So, it’s not your strongest skill,” she said. “But we don’t need that now. You can try that on other people, not me. Now, let’s concentrate on using the Force to find someone far away. That is why we are here. Rey. I need you to see her clearly in your mind. Everything you remember about her.”

And for the next couple of hours Kylo was forced to think - to _meditate_ on the girl who had defeated him. It was humiliating. Every now and then he was sure Sara Rem Nata must be laughing at him. He didn’t want to think about Rey with Sara Rem Nata there. There was too much shame.

“Ask yourself, _who is she_?” Sara Rem Nata prompted, more than once. “Cast that knowledge out, like a fishing line, like a net.” Well obviously, he thought with some irritation. And he knew, he felt he knew her. Had known that bright mind as soon as he’d encountered it. The child he’d concealed in thought. Now a woman who eluded his grasp with a power she wielded so naturally it made him grind his teeth. She had the same certainty of action that the Kylo sought in the Dark Side of the Force, but she didn’t even need to try for it.

He focused on his own Force, imagining it as a whirling black column that reached out from the centre of his gut, through his spine, his head, and up into space. Its top shredded and tattered, sending out long searching fingers. Somehow it wouldn’t hold together.

Instead he fell into a daydream where Snoke pitted him against Rey in an arena. A fight to see who would be his true apprentice in power. It ended with Snoke preferring Rey no matter whether Kylo won or lost the duel. The betrayal stung, even if it was only imaginary.

Kylo felt his frustration grow. No way was any of this helping him find Rey. He wasn’t learning anything from this teacher.

At last she decided they’d done enough. “I will see you next week. Keep practicing, and we’ll see how you are progressing.”

Progressing? All they’d achieved was that he felt a new kind of failure.

She bowed slightly and left, this time through the garden gate. He was slightly able to track her well-defended mind through the mazy paths of the gardens outside. Like a silver ball rolling, reflecting the surroundings, hard to see. But he could at least tell she was there. Interesting.

He thought it rather odd that she didn’t seem to think it was important to be able to read people as easily as she could, with that feather-light touch that most people would never even notice. How useful it must be in this place, which was such a brangle of competing jealousies and ambition.

The morning’s exercises had tired him a little. He went inside to rest. Rest proved impossible though. His thoughts kept coming back to Rey. Rey in the interrogation chamber. Helpless. She’d been at his mercy. Imagine if that mind-reading had gone the way he wanted. Or forget the mind-reading! What if he’d taken his gloves off as well as his mask, touched her face? Her skin had had a glow about it, of youth, health, recent sun. Nothing like the pallid skin of the Finalizer’s people. He could have touched that long, lean body, run his hands along the tough sinews barely hidden in her soft skin. He had been so close to her lips, which were a little chapped from the sun. Their softness would have felt slightly rough. He’d felt her breath on his lips. Again, he’d made the wrong decision. She hated him anyway. He should have done what he wanted. Before she figured out how to fight him off.

Maybe if he’d eased into her mind the way Sara Rem Nata seemed able to, things would have been different. It could be true, then, that his failure was also partly Snoke’s failure. He had not given Kylo the training he needed to confront a person like Rey. Some blame could go to Snoke. A tiny weight lifted off Kylo’s burden of failure.

He was shifted out of his reverie by Spikey bringing lunch. There was one mind he should Force-read straight away, he thought. Something about his session with Sara Rem Nata reminded him that not everyone in the Palace wished him well. He was getting lazy about scanning for threats in his environment, and Spikey was a part of his environment he should test as a matter of course. He cast the Force out to her, trying to be more subtle than usual. She noticed immediately though, and turned from where she was setting out plates to stare at him.

What a mind, he thought. It was like somebody had set off a bomb in an aviary: all twitter and colour. It was difficult to make out much of anything through the chaos. About the only thing he picked up clearly was _Ugh, not this again!_ She’d been mindlinked before. Often. Some sort of family connection. Sister? Brother? Warmth, laughter, fear, grief. It was slightly nauseating, all those big emotions and bright colours splashing around randomly everywhere. He disengaged.  
“How do you even think with that?” he asked. She shrugged.

“It works well enough for me.”

He still hadn’t figured out that other vibe she had, the one that was not Force. The hum. It was there in her mind, like a background to everything else, but inert. Weak.

People were a lot more varied than you realised, he thought, chewing his lunch slowly. He pretended not to notice that Spikey had drifted over to the bookshelf and lifted another book. She glanced at the title and the hum in her mind spiked. Interesting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	11. Tea and Poetry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren wasn't cut out for this life. It's like a scene from a willow pattern plate. History, poetry, tea in the gardens....he's not learning what he wants or Snoke intends.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Spikey was about pour out some tea from an ornate silver pot with a long spout. It gave off a bright herbal steam. “Show me around the gardens,” said Kylo as he was finishing lunch. “It looks like a maze.” He was thinking about how hard it had been to track Sara Rem Nata as she left that morning, and how he really should know his environment better.

“It is a maze,” said Spikey. “Or at least, there is a maze, an actual labyrinth. The rest of it is just very complicated. This part of the palace is sunk into a sort of plateau behind the big frontage that everyone sees, overlooking the the spaceport. We get pretty harsh winds all year round, so the gardens are also sunk below ground level, with a whole lot of walls dividing them up so they’re almost like little rooms, all connected up. It’s confusing. There’s a lake, and the kitchen gardens too. Let’s take the tea out and I’ll show you a spot where you can see the whole thing.”

They went out into his courtyard and through a gate that led to a series of high-walled walks. The walls were too high to look over. Each guestroom had its own courtyard garden, she told him, and then each courtyard was indirectly linked by this rather puzzling arrangement of zig-zag walls. Everything led eventually to a wider avenue planted with generously shady trees. On the other side of that was the dense shrubbery of the maze. There was a fountain in the middle, she said, but didn’t offer to show him. A higher hedge concealed the kitchen gardens and orchards on one side; on the other end of the avenue, the ground sloped even further to a lake. A little island with a white stone temple stood in the middle, and he could see black birds sailing serenely on the water.

“Those are the howler swans,” she said. “They make that awful noise you hear sometimes. Really cheer the place up.”

She led him back to the zig-zag walled gardens and up some steps that led to a circular platform on top of one wall, high enough to look over the whole area. It was shaded by a pergola covered in vines, and had a little stone table and chairs. Spikey set down the tea service.

Kylo stood a moment looking around. From here could see the complex layout of the garden, which was pleasing to the eye. Weathered stone and brick, statues dotted around everywhere, the lake, the smell of some flowering plant somewhere. Snoke’s Palace. Whatever Snoke did all day, Kylo very much doubted he spent time feeding the howler swans, smelling the flowers and appreciating the collected sculptural styles of a dozen centuries. And here _he_ was, doing a bit of light meditation with Sara Rem Nata and taking tea in the pergola. He kicked moodily at a loose stone and snorted. The whole thing was utterly bizarre. He sat down and sipped his tea.

Spikey sat leaning against one of the pillars of the pergola, absently twisting some small flowers together into a knot. Then she slipped a book out of her waistband and started reading it. Kylo noticed that the slight mental hum about her intensified as she did so.

“What’s that?”

“Poetry from Fariol. First Republic. Hen-Alspeth and people around his time.” She didn’t lift her eyes from the book.

“Huh. Haven’t had to look at that stuff since I was …” He stopped. He hadn’t gone to a normal school, but they had had to learn some things besides the ways of the Force. More literature than he really cared for. He didn’t want to talk about his education ever, with anyone.

“It’s been kept around for a reason,” she said absently. “People shouldn’t discount it. Listen, here’s a good bit.” She launched into some lines that he vaguely recognised. He’d never heard them like this, though. The text really came alive in her voice — she understood the rhythm of the words and her voice took on different colours. Vaguely interested, Kylo asked to hear more. He had another afternoon to kill, after all. She leafed through the book and read some more. A very short story came to life in her telling. She moulded the difficult, archaic language so the thoughts in it were crystal-clear. On another old verse she paused and said with delight, “Oh, this one goes to music. I know it….I didn’t know all the words though!” She unspooled a long tale of bravery and ill fortune, full of clashing syllables and resonant vowels. “But then there’s this one, so simple — how does this work, with so few words?” she asked, and recited a poem as perfect as a pearl. “You could not change a word of that,” she said happily. “Hey, I have to go and get back to work though. Can you find your way back to your room? There’s a statue of a woman with a bird, turn in that archway. Then turn through a second archway that has dancing taun-tauns over the top.”

He waved her off and sat for a while longer as the afternoon drew on and the garden was in shadow. He’d been free of his misfortunes for an hour or two, he thought. It was hard to chew over his misery while listening to her read about someone else’s. Better than watching holovids, which washed over him without dislodging the relentless twisting of his thoughts.

That little mental hum she had while reading was soothing, like the crinkling embers of a tiny campfire. Maybe she could read to him when he couldn’t sleep.

Slightly brightened by that thought, he climbed back down to ground level and found his way back to his rooms. He passed the statue of the woman with the bird. Spikey’s little nosegay was cupped in one of its hands.

 

 

 

 


	12. Kitchen Garden

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> May contain traces of Kylo Ren and events in The Force Awakens, but mostly this is about other characters in this story.

These days Spikey was positively sprinting to get things done. She’d never had trouble trading her cooking skills for more supplies. The commissary willingly diverted all kinds of interesting ingredients her way in return for a share in whatever she made. Nobody was going to dob her in for taking a coldbox and cooker to her room once they were on the receiving end of her baking. The immaculately-tended kitchen gardens produced far more than the Palace could use. Vole, bless his cold little heart, gloried in the possession of separate quarters in a different wing, so he was unaware of these arrangements and so far nobody had seen any reason to enlighten him. She often cooked in the evenings, when there was no reason to send drones out to check up on servants.

But now Spikey had two mouths to feed besides the people she paid off, and one of those mouths was a ravenously hungry young man who was trying to put on some muscle. Every day Spikey dutifully collected Kylo’s meals from the main kitchens, but her long jog to his room was interrupted by a trip outside to the snorber pens, where she tossed whatever was in the hotbox, and then another detour to her room, where she threw together and heated up whatever she’d prepared previously. Another jog to the guest wing, hoping not to meet anyone on the way. Meal delivered, she raced out to skim the rows of the orchards and vegetable plots, scanning for whatever was coming into season, stripping the bushes of juicy late-summer goodies, ferreting out edible treasures from under the soil.

It was fun, above and beyond the simple pleasure of getting one over Vole.

And some small part of her enjoyed watching Kylo eat. Spikey supposed she was like any zookeeper who takes pride in nursing her charges back to health, even the deadly ones. He’d gone from being a miserable depressed thing, like a sick moulting bird of prey, to a creature with much more purpose. She could sense the dark energy that propelled him, and he was certainly not a happy man. But she had a perverse enjoyment for his sourness and snark, and a great curiosity about the tension that underlay it. So many people she worked for were simply unpleasant human beings, unleavened by any trace of wit or intelligence. But him? He was  magnificent! A deadly beast, indeed.

When she poked the bars of his cage, she needed to remember there _were_ no bars between them.

Spikey would love to work in the gardens. But so far no amount of pie-fuelled bribery had got her any closer to being transferred. For all of her analyses of how the Palace worked, she couldn’t get it to work for _her._ Vole was the insuperable block. But if she had an ally _more powerful_ than Vole…

This particular day she needed herbs to flavour a bread dough she was raising and also ones to put in an omelette, so she headed for the herb garden, a stepped sun-trap shaped like a low amphitheatre of varied greenery. The First Order Palace was so beautiful, she thought. What a pity it was inhabited by so many arseholes. One could only hope for a regime change. Snoke’s people were only the latest in a long line of inhabitants, after all.

Somebody was picking herbs before her: luckily not one of the people Spikey preferred to avoid. It was Lissa, one of the comfort girls. She was a tall, blonde woman who moved with a queenly air that belied her warmth. Spikey crossed paths with the comfort girls from time to time, and had found them good company: rather more well-travelled and well-educated than the kitchen and cleaning crew, they made good conversation. Away from clients, they dropped any hint of coquetry, and were direct and often funny. They weren’t out much during the day, so Spikey was surprised to meet Lissa here in the gardens.

“Hi Lissa. What brings you here?”

“Looking for some herbs. Andala and I have been working on making our own cosmetics. It’d be nice if we could source some of the scents from here.”

“You might be able to,” said Spikey, interested. “There’s a lot of stuff here, a lot more than I know about. Some of these smell fantastic. Have you asked the under-head-gardener, Tilder? He’d know about all these.”

“No, which one’s he?”

“Grey hair, kind of stocky….why don’t we go look for him, you can tell him what you want.” Spikey collected the herbs she needed, and the two of them headed for the droid storage sheds where the gardeners were based. On the way Spikey asked how things were going in the comfort wing.

“Busy,” said Lissa. “The Palace is like a bee’s nest since the attack on the Hosnian system. And masses of military people….they’re trying to regroup after the Resistance blew up Starkiller Base.”

“What was that? Tell me more!” The comfort wing had access to much more news than Spikey. She’d been right about history in the making — the Galaxy seemed to be in an uproar. Spikey had not heard about it in this much detail before. There was lots to talk about, and their conversation ended with an invitation to visit the girls in the comfort wing common room when she finished work for the day. Spikey would bring some spices from the commissary that she thought might be useful for Lissa’s project.

As she returned to her quarters, she picked three small flowers, the golden safiah stars her sister had loved most. It made Spikey both happy and sad to see them blooming. She knotted them together and laid them at the feet of a black statue of some old hero mounted on a beast she couldn’t even name. Making a formal gesture, she began to chant softly in an old language:

_To all here living and present_   
_To all spirits of those dead, and yet to come_   
_In the world of light, and the world of darkness_   
_Be welcome, be welcome, be thrice welcome._

She ended the prayer on a soft crooning note that trailed away and said, “I name you: Mother, Sister, Friend. You are not forgotten”.

The flowers looked well on the black stone. She liked to put them wherever she could, in beautiful places, to honour the spirits of her dead, and in places that were ugly, to make them less so. Sometimes in appropriate places, and sometimes in the most inappropriate places possible. She called it unforgetting, and it was another tiny strike in her personal war against everything.

Spikey returned to her quarters with a spring in her step, well pleased by how her morning had turned out. Life was certainly more interesting lately.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	13. The Chitarra

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Contains, again, only traces of Kylo Ren and Hux and recent events on Starkiller Base.

Spikey had joined the comfort girls in their common room, and was helping Lissa and her friend Andala render down some of the ingredients they’ve collected for their cosmetics experiment. It was late, but the cooker they were using was making some heat. The room opened up onto a first-floor balcony, and the windows were thrown open to let in the summer night air. Spikey was finding the conversation comfortable. No false airs. They saved that for their clients. From whom they learned quite a lot about current events.

They discussed the events around the destruction of Starkiller Base. The girls saw a lot of General Hux and his men, and they filled Spikey in on the juicy bits of blame-slinging they’d overheard. “They blame Kylo Ren most, though,” said Andala, in summary. “General Hux especially. Really hates him. There’s some personal history too I think.”

“How is he treating you?” asked Lissa. “I’ve heard he’s pretty violent.”

“I got choked once. The worst beating I’ve had lately is from Vole.” Servants valued stoicism, and some even wore their beatings like a badge of pride, though Spikey found that rather sick.

“Yeah, he’s been a madman lately. I heard from Nereda in the big kitchens. Nobody knows why.”

“Enough Palace politics. Is there war in Fariol?” asked Spikey, turning her thoughts to the Galaxy outside their backwater planet.

“Not that I’ve heard. Not much there anyone would want,” answered Lissa. “You from there or something?”

“Yes.”

“What’s it like?” called over a girl who was painting her nails by the window. Serilla, a girl who liked to be as well-informed about the Galaxy as possible. “Are the great universities still going?”

“Very much so. That’s stayed pretty constant in our history, whatever else happens,” said Spikey. “A lot of my family worked at the school in Montjau.”

“Smart people then. What about music?”

“Lots of music when I was there,” said Spikey.

“Well we know that obviously, all the best stuff comes out of there,” said Lissa.

“Does it still?” said Spikey eagerly. “Do you hear it?”

“Yeah, we can pick up their ‘casts,” said Lissa.

“You can listen to what they’re playing now?” said Spikey, now really excited.

“Yes. We’re asked to play for clients often enough, and it pays to keep up with what’s current.” At the look on Spikey’s face, Lissa laughed. “Do you play or something?”

“I used to. Chitarra.”

Lissa’s eyes widened with glee. “I have the nicest surprise for you then! Here, keep stirring this.” She handed Spikey a spoon and went off to her private room, which was somewhere down a corridor at the back. She came back bearing a long red instrument, smoothly lacquered and new. It had some delicate carving and discreet gilt decoration, but the working parts were sleekly functional. Not a toy. Lissa put it in her hands. Spikey settled it into her lap and held it like a precious baby. It was glorious.

“One of Hux’s men likes my playing so much he brought me back a new chitarra from offworld,” said Lissa, enjoying the look on Spikey’s face.

“Yeah, sure, it was your _playing!_ ” said Andala sarcastically.

“Yeah, nah, he’s tone deaf,” said Lissa, laughing. “But he bought the most expensive instrument he could find. Is it any good?” asked Lissa.

“Yes, play for us, Fariolana,” said Andala. Spikey’s heart jumped at the title of respect. Once her dearest dream, to be called one of the great leaders of the art.

“I haven’t earned that name,” she said. But she crooked her fingers to the strings and stroked them. “Oh, I’ve forgotten so much,” she cried after a moment. But then she forget everyone and everything as her fingers travelled the roads they had once known so well. Slow, but familiar still. She could still get a sweet, ringing sound, and fragments of melodies came back to her.

After a while she came back to awareness of the room, where everyone was listening with appreciation. “It’s beautiful. Truly a good instrument.”

Lissa smiled and said, “I have an even better surprise, perhaps. How would you like to take our old one and have it to play on whenever you like?”

Spikey jumped up and hugged her. Her eyes were shining. She jumped around the room with excitement while Andala fetched the old chitarra, and took it with breathless joy. It was a little battered, and had a coarser sound, but she could still play it. Whenever she liked. Or a least, whenever she could fit in around keeping Kylo fed and her other room-servant duties.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Things are going to pick up now that everyone's been properly introduced.


	14. Snoke Dreams of the Future

The next day Snoke called Kylo in to the Throne Room to see how the the search for Rey was going. Kylo had little to report, but Snoke seemed unconcerned. “When you contact her, I want you to learn how to control her. I much prefer to have her under our control. It would be a wasted resource to simply kill her,” Snoke finished. Kylo watched him anxiously for clues whether he was growing impatient or disappointed in him. But instead Snoke changed the subject.

“Have you ever spent time on a primitive world?” Snoke’s image leaned forward, hands clasped over his knees. He seemed relaxed. “One with only ground level technology?”

“A few times,” said Kylo, wondering where this was going. Snoke’s eyebrow crept upward in a silent query, and Kylo went on. “When I was young. My…..father. He sometimes took me with him on the Millennium Falcon, and he went some out-of-the-way places. I realise now he was probably involved in some law-breaking activities….’ Kylo trailed off. Was Snoke wanting more evidence of his father’s perfidy? He’d talk about it if he had to… He pushed aside memories of dusty market squares, the smell of charcoal and hot food, the sound of a craftsman’s hammer on fine metalwork, people everywhere laughing and talking, Han’s hand on his shoulder pulling him out of the way of a some religious procession that danced past, singing and beating drums. The memory brought a pain so intense he wanted to vomit.

“Have you ever noticed how difficult life is on those planets? Have you seen the way they look at our repulsorlifts, our warp drives and inertialess drives, our apparently endless supplies of energy, and it looks like absolute magic to them?” said Snoke, staring off into space.

“No, not really,” said Kylo. If he had, it was around the same time as he was wondering why the sky was blue and what the sun was made of.

“It’s amazing how people don’t think about it,” said Snoke musingly. “These technologies are the foundation of all our power, and few people ever give it a moment’s thought. We don’t know much about who made them first, the so-called Builders. It took a thousand years for farships to bring back the first black boxes from those vanished civilisations. Another thousand years to learn how to copy the technology. Yet hardly anyone really knows how it works. Every half-way decent engineer can put a black box in their engines, and look! We have a warp drive. But we didn’t create it!”

Snoke fingered the scars on his head absently. To Kylo, he looked amazing, like an ancient tree that has weathered the fury of countless storms to become twisted and silvered with age, yet still remaining vital. The scars were testament to an incredible personal history.

As usual in Snoke’s virtual presence, he almost needed to shake himself if he wanted to speak. And if he really concentrated, he was aware of something more urgent on his mind. “Does this have anything to do with the Force?” he asked. Suddenly he wanted to scream. _Look at me, look in my head. Put it back together, the Dark is leaking out. I can’t do this on my own!_ Where had that come from? he thought, dazed.

But Snoke was unstoppably carried on his own train of thought. He fixed Kylo with a bright, considering stare. “Not directly. But I look on the Force as our hidden advantage. Our wild card, if you like. Because if creatures with greater technology ever challenge us, then we need something they haven’t got to set against their technical superiority. I believe the Force is that power.”

Kylo breathed in suddenly with amazement. It was true, nobody seemed to consider these things! He’d heard histories that contradicted what Snoke just said, but Snoke _knew_ things. His mind spun with the possibilities. Indeed the Supreme Leader was wise. He bowed his head in acknowledgement.

“This is why we cannot let the Light win,” Snoke continued. “If the Galaxy’s rule was left to the Light, we’d all be left contemplate our oneness with everything. Even their greatest masters, such as Yoda, are content to spend years living in a swamp watching ferns grow. The Jedi haven’t been responsible for a single technological innovation in centuries. They would never have — and still don’t — send out far-jumper ships to look at the neighbouring galaxies. They would let things stagnate. They are so obsessed with inward peace that they have no curiosity whatsoever.

“We may meet alien civilisations before which we seem no more than children. But even if this never comes to pass, you have to understand why I believe in the Dark Side. You may think I set great store by Hux’s military machine, or the great laboratories of our strongholds. And they are important. But it is the Force, and our willingness to use it, that is our true strength.”

Kylo bowed. “I hope I can justify your belief…I mean, I hope I can learn to serve the Dark Side as you require.” Was there something else he'd meant to...?

Snoke leaned back with an expansive gesture, smiling. Kylo felt a hard knot of tension in him dissolve. Now was not the time to speak, he felt. As a boy, he had lived for those times when Snoke’s voice would come to him, secretly inside his mind, with a sense of that same approving smile. Pulling him out of his terrible whirling dreams, reassuring him that he would show him the power to overcome all the fears in his heart. Really, his problems were nothing. Snoke had a plan. All Kylo had to do was to obey his orders.

“That is what you are here for.” He straightened up to his full height, looking at Kylo more seriously. “There are many abilities we will learn and practice. Now, your fighting technique. You are powerful, but you need a focused physical form that you may pour the Force into. Your technique must be unshakeable, for then you provide an open channel for the Force flow freely.

“Tomorrow at two, then, the swordmaster Hestar Litt will come to you and take you to the dojo. Treat him with utmost respect and learn what he has to teach.” Snoke gestured a dismissal.

Kylo Ren bowed, his heart filled with determination and eagerness to begin. As he walked the long halls back to his rooms, his legs felt their spring returning. Snoke hadn’t addressed Kylo’s problems dealing with Han’s death, but he’d filled him with a sense of purpose and confidence, as he so often did. That was almost as good.

* * *

   
“Yes I’ve been in the throne room,” Spikey said. “More than you, probably.” She was yanking at the laces that fastened Kylo’s most elaborate uniform, which he’d worn for his meeting with Snoke.

“I doubt that. What would you be doing in the throne room? Personal audiences with Snoke?”

“Cleaning. All that black marble shows up marks. It’s the very devil.”

“My, what would the First Order do without you?” said Kylo, somewhat nettled. The throne room should inspire fear and awe. Certainly he never walked in there without feeling his chest tighten.

“I don’t share the Supreme Leader’s taste in music,” she went on blandly. “I knew a guy who sang in that choir once though. Such a deep voice. Gorgeous.”

She started on changing the bed linen. “It’s a good thing we can turn the music off when we work in there, though,” she said, scooping up the dirty washing and heading for the door. “It’s got all these super low frequencies added in. You can’t hear them but they make people feel terrible. Scared and queasy. It’d be a bit counterproductive to send us in there to clean if we were throwing up.”

“You need to _shut up!!!!”_ The nearest thing to hand was a vase, and he threw it. Spikey yelled and dived out of sight. Fragments of pottery exploded against the door.

_“Come back here!”_

Spikey stuck her head round the door, then sidled in. She looked at the potsherds and back at him. “That thing was 500 years old!”

“Worth more than you, then. Clean that up.”

“What did I _say?_ Why are you so mad?”

He couldn’t even put into words how he hated her ability to undermine things that mattered to him. Instead he Force-slammed her against the wall until her breath was hissing between her teeth with pain. He dropped her and she dragged herself out, kicking the biggest shards in front of her. He got some satisfaction from overhearing her thoughts as she left, swearing silently and bitterly at him.

But audiences with Snoke were never going to seem quite the same now.

That night he dreamed of Rey. She leapt down from the wall, into his arms. She was a grown woman and she felt wonderful, long and lithe and warm against him. He leaned down to kiss her, full of desire. Her eyes fluttered open, and her face twisted.

_You loathsome, vile, monstrous creature!_ She kneed him in the groin. He woke up covered in sweat and balls aching. So, he’d developed a whole new kind of terrible dream! He jumped out of bed and kicked the furniture in a fury, picking up the chairs and smashing them into splinters.


	15. Sparring and Horseplay

Kylo began fight training most afternoons with Hestar Litt, a tall, cold-eyed man who was possibly the most boring teacher he’d ever had. He honestly thought this continued stay in the First Order Palace would drive him mad. Endless repetitions of forms he’d mastered years ago, with Hestar pick-pick-picking over tiny matters of posture and balance. They worked in a small sand-floored arena within the Palace. Nobody else came to watch, let alone spar, though there were surely young trainees around the Palace. Kylo wondered if this was some devious punishment of Snoke’s: to break his pride by busting him back down to basic exercises. Hestar would not be drawn on why fifty repetitions of the same exercise might be necessary, beyond saying he was following Snoke’s orders. And reminding him that Kylo was forbidden to use the Force on him in training. Kylo often left the sessions so supercharged with pent-up rage that he walked back to his rooms with his borrowed lightsaber still ignited, slashing wildly at the marble walls. They blackened but did not crumble. People and droids scrambled to get out of his way. It gave him some tiny satisfaction, to see the fear on their faces.

Snoke sent for him and told him to contain himself, and also, to start attending the various diplomatic functions around the Palace as well the strategic planning meetings. Hux had gone off on a mission, but there were plenty of retired generals and striving lieutenants to carry on with. Kylo could hardly bear to imagine sitting through those meetings without a mask to hide his feelings. The Palace had a workshop, apparently. He went to see about having a new mask made.

Passing down the empty corridors of this mostly-deserted end of the Palace, he sensed Spikey somewhere nearby, with her weird mental hum. It was connected to a monotonous plinking noise that ran up, down, up, down, faster and faster, moved up to a different note, and repeated the pattern again. He'd been hearing it drifting out of various abandoned rooms lately, always the same. Like a kata of music, as boring as the exercises Hestar Litt made him do.

* * *

 

  
These days, whenever Spikey delivered lunch Kylo was usually outside in the courtyard garden, apparently meditating, or pacing in that jittery, twitchy-handed way of his. If he was having lessons with Sara Rem Nata, that frighteningly poised Sith teacher, Spikey would leave as soon as possible. Otherwise she’d busy herself with some cleaning until Kylo was ready to come in.

One day she was doing exactly that when she felt the unmistakeable sensation of somebody putting a Force command on her. Unmistakeable to Spikey anyway, who had seen plenty in over a decade at the Palace. She knew what that twisting, vice-like feeling was. It felt disgusting to have somebody in her mind that way. Having somebody else operate her limbs was a new twist and she hated it. Kylo was taking over her body and forcing her to walk out the door, jerkily, like a puppet. It made her blood boil. She halted before Kylo, as commanded, and stood sullenly before him where he stood outside beside the wooden bench. She couldn’t quite straighten up, and had to glare up at him from under her brows. He looked quite calm and collected.

“What is it now?” she managed to hiss. He gestured with his palm and Spikey found herself flattened on the grass, her cheek pressed into the dirt. He crouched down next to her.

“I can read what you’re thinking,” he said, sounding amused. She thought she would explode with rage. “It’s quite a catalogue. Hit, kick, bite, scratch, maim, punch….”

“Pick on someone your own size, why don’t you?”

“The Knights of Ren don’t play fair. They play to win.”

“Well, you just enjoy your tiny victory. If that’s what it takes to make you happy,” she said.

“So much anger! It’s a pity you don’t have the Force, you’d make a great Sith.”

“Yeah, Snoke would love me. I’d be his favourite, and once he’d trained me up he’d say, ‘Go find Kylo Ren and eliminate him for me. He’s such a little jerk, I don’t know what I ever saw in him.’”

Kylo gave a great shout of laughter and fell back on the grass, still laughing.

Spikey swallowed her anger. What was the point? She too had her mind tricks, and this was one of them: to dive down deep within herself and centre herself in calm, for an instant. From there she could resurface somewhere away from the fury, shedding it like water.

Kylo got up and released Spikey, who tried to get up in as dignified a way as possible. Kylo still looked amused.

“You still want to fight me? Come on then.” He crooked his fingers to call her closer.

“I couldn’t even get near you, so why bother? Watch.” She launched herself at him in an exaggerated martial arts style, and he stepped easily out of the way without even appearing to do anything, smacking her on the back of the head as he did so. Spikey waved him off with a gesture of disgust and walked back inside. Kylo followed close behind, almost jostling her. He was like an overgrown teenage boy, horsing around. “So immature,” she muttered. “What were you trying to do anyway?”

“I have to practice the skills Sara Rem Nata is teaching me.”

“Fantastic. I’m so glad to be of service. There’s your lunch. If you don’t need me for anything, I’ll be back to clean up later.” Sometimes you could distract a rathtar by throwing food at it, she thought, and left before Kylo found any reason to keep her around. He was only worse in the evenings, too, she thought. For some reason fight training was riling him up more than anything. The sad, wounded bird of prey he’d been a few weeks ago was now fizzing with some black internal spin cycle. Making idiotic attacks on the furniture so she had to ask Match for replacements. Lately she’d been dropping off dinner and running off as fast as possible. Stupid to imagine she could help somebody with problems as big as his, and she wasn’t going to waste any more time engaging with him. She could be practicing the chitarra in her room instead.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There may be a break for a few days while I'm away from home. Depends on internet availability.


	16. Poetry and Sleep

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It is a delicate process to heal after committing a terrible act. But somehow in the mundane repetition of life, old habits die, new ones grow, and with time the most unlikely acts start to form a scab over the wound. So with Kylo Ren.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

It seemed even Kylo couldn’t stand his own bad mood any more. After dinner one evening he called her back before she could escape. He wanted her to read to him. She paused in the doorway, thinking longingly of her chitarra. But he wasn’t tolerating excuses lately, or anything that brooked his will. With a sigh she returned meekly to the room, stopping to run her hands over the spines of the books on the shelf.

“What sort of thing would you like to hear?”

“Something that’ll put me to sleep.”

Fair enough, she thought. He looked exhausted, had done so for days. She was going to be tired too though. What if he took hours to fall asleep? She still had work to do. Mulling that over, she picked out a novel from the previous century. Great stuff, lots of drama and adventure, written by an author famous for snappy dialogue. That would certainly pass the time. The book’s opening pages were explosive, and Spikey forgot all about Kylo, chewing morosely in his corner. Eventually he pushed his plate aside.

“I’ll run those back,” she said quickly. “Also I have to set some dough to rise, or you won’t have breakfast. Do you want me to come back to read more after that?”

He hadn’t changed his mind, so she had to come back. He was wearing some kind of soft pants which she assumed were his sleepwear. Black, of course. She tried to avoid noticing how his torso looked after just a couple of weeks of fight training. He caught her looking anyway and got a smug look on his face. Arrogant bastard, she thought. You’re not the first person in the Galaxy to have muscles. Or scars. She could see the top of that huge scar on his hip making an exclamation mark next to his abdominals. Suppressed a desire to look at the rest of it. He was lucky not to have been disembowelled by that one.

“Gods forfend you should wear another colour ever,” she said, covering her embarrassment, and made herself comfortable on one of the sofas. He narrowed his eyes warningly, and she shut up. Using the Force and a flick of his hand, he snapped off all the lights except the one where she was, and climbed into bed. Well that must be convenient sometimes, she thought.

“Okay, so the wife has just realised she was meant to think it was suicide, but she’s not sure who’s behind the deception. Her husband realises she wasn’t fooled, and let’s see now…..” This was easy, easy language that flowed along, crackling with energy. Spikey knew that the best stories for falling asleep were the ones that sucked you in so completely that you couldn’t possibly spare a thought for your own problems. Kylo started out looking bleakly at Vader’s helmet above the foot of the bed, but soon enough he started to stare at the ceiling instead, no doubt trying to follow all the clues and double-crosses in the story. Quite suddenly he was asleep. His face, in repose, looked unutterably sad. Long lashes still at last, that long, sardonic mouth relaxed, lips parted. She wondered if his bad dreams still woke him, and how often.

Spikey paused experimentally and when he didn’t wake, she closed the book and tip-toed out. She’d lulled the rathtar to sleep! Bongo!

* * *

  
Reading aloud became part of the pattern of her days, and she found she enjoyed it immensely. She was from a theatre family, and this kind of thing could well have been her life, if things had turned out differently: throwing herself into different parts, putting on voices, and finding the colour and the stride that lifted great language off the page. This was an actual talent that she had, one that hadn’t been needed or wanted for years, and she would gladly have read for Snoke himself if he’d asked.

She got Kylo to send a droid to the Palace library for more books. She got a side-order of things she could sing as well, but Kylo didn’t know that. For some reason she was utterly convinced that having her precious chitarra and Kylo’s lightsaber in the same room would be a bad idea. She was superstitious about it. It was too private a part of her, and this indefinable relationship they had carried the possibility that he might turn on her and destroy something like the chitarra out of spite. A too-easy target. She had marked him as someone whose feelings would run as strongly and suddenly in either direction. They were becoming something more personal than master and servant, but whatever it was instead was too mercurial to name. She was always chipping away at his superiority and he was always bridling up but coming back for more. It would be easy enough for him to silence her, to forbid her to talk back, but he preferred to argue instead. Adversaries, but without the hostility that seemed to colour all his other interactions with people.

They certainly argued about what she read. Whether it was good, and why, or why not. Why the characters did what they did. Kylo confessed that he’d had no idea people cared so much about this kind of thing, but a few minutes later would start the conversation again, thinking through what she’d said. Or she’d get another book out of the shelf, saying “Maybe that didn’t work, but here’s one where it really does work!”

She was fascinated by his face at such times. The way his long mouth seemed to twitch and pucker with the effort of choosing between a dozen conflicting ideas he couldn’t voice. The way the skin around his eyes contracted with thought. The way feelings flashed in his eyes, fast and vivid. When he was angry he could look surprisingly ugly, almost rat-like. Lips pulled back over his teeth. At other times he had the pensive beauty of a romantic hero. It was as though he had two faces. Or maybe more.

Spikey’s storytelling pulled him out of his bitter stew of thoughts in a way that something passive, like viewing a holovid, could not have done. They liked matching wits. When she made him laugh she felt like she’d scored a victory, because his laughter was so rare that he looked surprised at himself, and that was funny. And he in turn looked just as pleased when he won a point over her, or made her laugh. And then she’d read something that would put him to sleep. She watched his face relax until he looked like a sad and impossibly beautiful figure from a tomb carving. She wondered how many people he trusted. It was a strange, delicate feeling, being trusted by somebody so widely feared and loathed by everyone else.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Action coming! Next chapter! This domestic bliss can't last.


	17. Looking for Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Finally, progress. She's out there somewhere!
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Looking for Rey

Rain came finally to the Palace, slashing down intemperately, dancing on the leaves and turning the courtyards to mud. The wide gutters and spouting drummed and chattered with the force of it. Kylo took a day off Sara Rem Nata’s utterly useless search exercises to look at the data files on Rey, which had finally arrived. Only now? he thought. He’d been waiting for weeks. Evidently faster than light travel and the professed efficiency of the First Order could not defeat human inertia, incompetence and bureaucracy. His hands were shaking with impatience as he took the box of data from the delivery droid.

There wasn’t a great deal. Unkar Plutt, the scrap merchant, had security cameras to protect his stock, but he didn’t have a reason to keep the footage for long. There were only ten clips of Rey coming in to trade her salvage for food. He watched them with a hunger he didn’t want to think about. Her face was shadowed under the big awning of Plutt’s trade station. Beyond her was the hard, brilliant light of the desert outside. But he could make out her economical poise: tired but not defeated. Her bright eyes, keenly observant. How she mastered her disappointment with the deals Plutt made, which were clearly unfair. Neither angered nor bowed, she kept her self-contained pride and left with a long, rangy stride he wanted to watch over again.

Security cameras on visiting ships had caught her passing by on a funny little landspeeder thing that made him snort with amusement. Junky. But fast! Other people making surveys of the downed battleships that littered Jakku had footage of her at work. She was evidently fearless around heights, climbing around the ruined hulls like an insect, and with as little fear of falling. That alone made him believe she was the same girl he’d met long ago, the fearless little climber who would not let him catch her fall.

His memories of that long-ago girl seemed to solidify while watching this one. He’d tried to suppress the memory of her, of his lie to Snoke. The first time he’d realised he could lie to Snoke, at least in this way: Snoke could get anything out of your head, but he didn’t always see things unless he was already looking for them.

Watching the footage of her scavenging work again, he wondered if she was using the Force to help her with those death-defying leaps. Not knowingly. She had no idea why some things came so easily to her. It was Kylo who had awakened her to conscious use of the Force, for better or worse. No training. It gnawed his guts, knowing she’d reached out and seized the Force so easily, at no cost to her.

Where had she lived? People in Niima Outpost seemed to make their homes out of scrap or inside larger pieces of scrap, if they weren’t just living in tents. He could only imagine.

There were a few films where Rey happened to walk into a shot, talking to somebody, or appeared in the background, tinkering with something. What did scavengers talk about, he wondered. There hardly seemed to be any people her age around. Hardly any humans at all, come to that. She was fluent in at least a few languages. She had to be, with such an eclectic mix of species around her.

His reverie was interrupted by Spikey, as reveries so often were. She was like a small bowling ball of snark, enthusiasm and trivial observations, he thought: constantly rolling across his path and tripping up the pursuit of his higher goals.

“Room service,” she said, unnecessarily. “Who’s that?” She was looking over his shoulder. The viewer was frozen on a close-up of Rey’s face, looking hopefully up at Plutt.

“None of your business.”

“She’s beautiful, whoever she is.”

“Do you think so?” Kylo tried to squash the idea. She had smelled pretty sweaty, for a start.

“Yes! It’s such an open face. A bright look. Those eyes are so … expressive. What is she doing?”

“She's a scavenger. She’s trading scrap metal for food.”

He reached for the plate Spikey was handing him. She hovered over his shoulder, fascinated by his viewscreen. “Look at those ships, all sunk in the sand! That’s an amazing sight. And is that her, shinnying up that rope like it was nothing? Why are you interested in this girl?”

“I have to find her.”

“Where is she?”

“If I knew that, I wouldn’t have to find her, now would I?”

“Okay, what do you mean? She’s somewhere in this galaxy and you’re looking for her? What clues have you got?” Predictably, Spikey seemed thrilled by the mystery. Kylo sighed. It was none of her business, but on the other hand, the tedium of searching on his own was getting to him.

“She has the Force, I have the Force. We’re like opposites. We’re the way the Force manifests itself in this generation. I on the Dark side, obviously, and her on the Light. Snoke believes it’s our destiny to come together in some way. He wants to capture her, to win her over to our side.”

“Why?”

“Because she’s powerful.”

Spikey seemed impressed. As she should be. He’d never told her anything about what he was doing, what he did. But she was thinking it over. After a silence, she asked, “This Force…is it sentient? Does it know you and her personally?”  
  
He was ashamed to realise he didn’t know. The Force filled him at times, making him a conduit for its vast power. But did it _know_ him? Would anyone else do as well, anyone with the same ability to channel it? Making him no more than a tool?

When he didn’t answer, she went on. “What does the Force want with us? With the thinking creatures, with _any_ creatures of the Galaxy? Does it want our good? Does it wish us well?”

“The Sith use it,” he answered. “It is a tool. Like fire.”

“Plenty of people say that and then their house burns down,” said Spikey. “But anyway, you have to find her. Using the Force?”

“Yes. Power like that, I should be able to find her wherever she is.”

“Have you met her?”

“Yes,” he said shortly, unwilling to elaborate. ‘I don’t want to talk about it.”

Spikey leaned right past his shoulder to look into his face, eyes narrowed. “She doesn’t like you, then.”

“She tried to kill me.”

“Ooh! Is that how you got that injury?”

“No! Yes. No…..we fought. One of her hairy alien friends shot a bowcaster at me, and that nearly killed me.”

“Who started it?”

“Look it doesn’t matter! We’re enemies, and I have to catch her.”

“And to do that, you need to know more about her, I guess. What else have you got?”

He sighed and gave in to her curiosity. There were a few interviews with people who’d been to Jakku to trade, and a few more with locals. Everyone said she was resourceful, smart, good at avoiding trouble, and good at standing up for herself when she couldn’t. Gifted with machines, a natural flyer. There was an interrogation with Plutt (Spikey turned a bit green at that) but Plutt could say nothing about the people who’d left Rey on Jakku. They were humans, he said. They looked like other humans. They didn’t say their names, or why they were leaving her. Trouble in some political dynasty, he’d assumed. An embarrassing offspring that needed to be hidden. Surplus to somebody’s precious family tree.

Spikey noticed things he hadn’t. That people liked Rey, that she was kind to them: there was a brief scene where Rey stopped to talk to an old, wrinkled woman. Somebody she could have nothing in common with, surely. The other woman looked surprised and pleased about something Rey had said, and pulled out something to show her — a picture? The two of them smiled together over the image. There was an unaffected warmth in the casual exchange.

Rey was so likeable. It made his heart sink. Even Spikey seemed to fall under her spell, just from looking at a few minutes of her life. They were cast in roles, like something out of one of Spikey’s books. Kylo as the irredeemable fallen one, Rey as the fair one. What would he have to do to Rey to bring her as far into the Dark as he had come? He stared at another picture of her. For all that she was dusty and undernourished, her face seemed to glow with an internal light, more than could be accounted for even with the desert sunlight. As though she’d been drinking it in all her life.

“You like her,” Spikey said.

He snarled something at her. He didn’t even know what he wanted to say.

“Well you _should_ like her! She’s amazing!” Spikey continued.

“Why would I want to like her when it’s my job to destroy her?”

Spikey, now perched on the arm of his chair, said nothing for a moment. Then he felt something completely unexpected. She had slid her small arm around his shoulders and given him a squeeze. A hug.

Kylo exploded out of the chair. “I don’t need your fucking pity!”

“Well stop being so fucking sad all the time!” she snapped, catching his mood on the bounce.

He grabbed her shoulders and shouted down at her, “You don’t know anything about me, what I’ve been through!”

She wiped his spit off her face, looking insulted. “That cuts both ways. You don’t know anything….” But he interrupted her, jabbing a finger at her face.

“I’ve seen enough of inside your head, I know you had a happy, _loving_ family….” his voice dripped with bitterness.

“ — who are all dead now. What about you? You’re one of the lords of the Galaxy! You get to make choices. I don’t! Read my mind again, I think you missed something!”

He wasn’t even trying, but got an image out of her head anyway: a bird in a cage grotesquely too small for it, wings bleeding as the bars cut into it. He shook his head furiously, trying to dispel it.

“I’m with the Dark side of the Force. We don’t do compassion!” But he could feel tears almost starting in his eyes - for himself, not her, surely! Equally trapped. Eventually he said, “You don’t know what I’ve done.”

“I don’t know your past, that’s true,” she replied quietly. “I doubt I will know your future. I only know you now.” She was looking at him steadily now, anger snuffed out as quickly as it had come.

“I have to kill her, or destroy everything she is.”

“Sucks to be you then! What the hell use is the Force, anyway? It doesn’t seem to help you any. Or her, stuck on that desert planet all those years.” She snorted and stood up, dropping her hand on his head as she did so in a hard caress, a tug of his hair. “Eat something, you’ll feel better.”

He ate, watching the interviews again. Spikey stood by the bookshelf, leafing through the old volumes. After a while Kylo said, “Knowing her is the key to finding her….I think you read me a story that had something like that…”

“What sort of story?” Spikey sounded reluctant.

“It didn’t mention the Force, but I think it’s what they meant. Magic. Very old. Something about a boy looking for a magical beast that was threatening his village. Find that one.”

“I remember the one.” He could feel her unwillingness. She didn’t want to help him find Rey now. She didn’t want Rey hurt. Too bad. He frowned at her, and she started looking for the book.

“I suppose it’s this one.” She had an old brown book open in her hands. “Let’s see…the boy needs to drive off the white dragon that is terrorising the village. A magic boy, this is. He needs to find the dragon in the snow, but he can’t see it. Nobody can see it. They hate it, because every year it destroys their livestock and takes their people. Finally a travelling sage tells him he must understand the dragon. He must see it with its own eyes. The dragon always knows where it is. And it doesn’t hate itself, so a hunter filled with hatred misses, aims at the wrong target. I’m not explaining this well….”

She turned a few more pages. “He keeps looking….the sage tells him he must get in the dragon’s mind, and the mind of the dragon is no more different than one person is from another. Huh. Is that true, Kylo?”

“Ye—es.” He thought about it. “There are general types of minds. Some people are difficult to get into. Not because they resist, but because it’s hard to understand what I’m seeing, or hard to see how to get from one place to another.”

“Huh! That’s interesting. Listen to this, then. ‘You can find minds like water, like rocks, like knotted rope, like a library, like woven cloth. For each one, you need to use your mind like the tool that can work within it.’ How’s that?”

“Leave the book here. I’ll have a look.”

After Spikey had gone off about her work, he read on. Was it a fairy tale? Parts of the story read almost like an instruction manual, as the sage tried to help the boy defeat the dragon. (Why didn’t he do it himself? Kylo wondered irritably. Didn’t want to get his hands dirty? Or was this one of those symbolic-myth stories that pretend to be about one thing while actually talking about something else?)

“Practice. Be aware of the minds around you,” counselled the sage. “Don’t force them, just brush them. Now, as you touch each one, I want you to develop a clear picture of what sort of mind it is. Then we will start consider what sort of tool you would use to engage with each kind.”

Kylo settled back and shut his eyes. The rain had tailed off to a drifting mizzle. He reached inside himself to feel the Force, imagined it spreading out like a net. He’d always used it like a spear, stabbing at whatever he wanted. Already this book was giving him ideas he could use. The whirling world of his bad dreams was on the fringes of his Force consciousness, part of it even, but he could ignore its threat. He focused on the little glimmers of other minds around him.

“So our task is to find the easy way into minds that are different,” said the book. “You have to picture them in a way that allows you the tools to enter them easily. Without forcing.”

Most people’s minds had an architecture Kylo could easily enter. Merely a question of finding the front door. You could follow the corridors, walk into the rooms and find what you wanted. But many were not, and he looked for those now.

Surprisingly, there were a couple of children not far away. Big, soft-edged shapes to their minds, very colourful. He slid a little way further in and caught a glimpse through their eyes of a walled garden like his own one. They were jumping in puddles. Joyous, until they felt his intrusion and one started to cry. He withdrew. Their mother was nearby. A diplomat’s wife. He could read that. Her mind was thorny with disappointed ambition, choked with frustrated energy. He had an odd moment of fellow-feeling with her: she had been stuck here for weeks feeling useless, alone and with nothing to do while her husband worked the ropes of the current political situation. But other than that shared sense of frustration, her mind was an uncomfortable place, narrow and constrained. High hedges, like the nearby garden labyrinth. Kylo slid away. She hadn’t noticed him.

A few people in the other direction appeared to be gardeners. They exuded an air of contented boredom with their work, shepherding work droids around the grounds, cleaning up the mess left by the storm. It felt unusual to see the gardens through their eyes for a few moments — what seemed to him like a vaguely pleasing arrangement of leaves and colours were unique entities to them, clearly observed and thoroughly understood.

It was interesting to brush past other people’s minds like this, lightly, without forcing. Some people were orderly, some were chaotic. Some were more pleasant to touch than others, but if he wasn’t trying to do anything except observe, it was fascinating. If he was careful enough, he didn’t have to deal with the unpleasant squirming sensation of somebody trying to throw him out.

This was not information that you grasped brutally, he realised. You went in with snippers. You strummed like a harpist. You threw in a driftnet. You tightened the rope on a sail. Each mind unique. He had known this as a child, and had forgotten it. And Sara Rem Nata had not thought to teach it to him. He smiled to himself. He’d been a quick, intuitive learner once, able to follow his curiosity to teach himself. Maybe he could be like that again.

Finding words for the experience came more easily as he went on. He saw that it was easier to work with concepts if they could be named, pictured. Too much of what he did with the Force was not well-described. Too often one was expected to learn by copying. So much of his training up until now had been brutal, without much explanation. Just a constant experience of being thrown in the deep end, challenged. It was always so adversarial, and often painful. Afterwards he might meet with Snoke and get some guidance, but it always seemed to be after he’d passed some test he’d had to figure out on his own. He’d given up wondering why his benevolent master would force such painful lessons upon him. Snoke would answer his questions, but Kylo wasn’t always able to think of the right questions in time. To be honest, Luke’s teaching hadn’t been much different, if less hostile.

After Kylo went to bed, he thought through his mental exercises of the day. Maybe he had to stop thinking about what he’d do to Rey if he found her, because that wasn’t getting him anywhere.

What if it were true? If you had to see the person as they saw themselves? Like calling to like, he thought. If a person didn’t see themselves with hatred, then the hate-filled searcher couldn’t find her. He had to see her as she saw herself, and his hate was only going to get in the way. He ground his teeth. But he _did_ hate her.

What did he hate? He’d been inside her mind. What had he seen, really? She was bright, active, a clear flame, a falcon quick to fly, apt to action. A mind full of open spaces and long thoughts as well as quick decisions. Warm, yet self-contained. Somebody who yearned to belong, just as he had once done, but with an unbending sense of herself and of _the right thing to do_. Not a person who courted popularity, or who even had an awareness of what others thought of her. Kylo Ren, surrounded by people all his life, was lonelier than this person who had grown up as a scavenger in a lonely desert, waiting for a family who never came back. She was her own best friend, and it gave her an integrity and strength he could only envy.

She had been filled with the wonder of…..of friendship. Suddenly, after a life of privation and loneliness, this unbelievably generous gift of friendship in her life. He’d seen that, as well as the loneliness that came before. Kylo’s breath hissed through clenched teeth as he remembered the warmth of her feelings for them all — including his father. He punched the pillow at the memory. Jealousy! He was jealous! How ignoble. He had to overcome it.

And lust. He wanted that lean, lithe body. To make her his. But she didn’t see that either. Didn’t see herself as desirable. He had to see her as she saw _herself._

He reached out, trying to use the same subtle net of Force to search. The bright swordswoman. Probably meditating with Luke somewhere. Filled with wonder at her newly-realised powers.

He felt it. At last, he felt it. Like a light through fog. Thick fog, so he caught only a dim intimation of its brilliance. A long way away. He didn’t know how to bridge the distance. But it was there, and unmistakably her.

 

 

 


	18. Seduction gone astray

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a diplomatic and social life at the First Order Palace, and Snoke wants Kylo to be more than just a fearsome boogeyman to the movers and shakers of the First Order. So, cocktail parties with the rich and great. 
> 
> It's still a snakepit, even if the snakes are well-dressed. Kylo would rather spend time with Spikey, because she's cute and harmless and has absolutely no power. Except her words. 
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Ah, cocktail parties at the First Order Palace!

Elsewhere there was war, but here, there were parties. Glittering parties with a slightly hysterical edge to the revels, after the official business of the day was over. Who knew who would rise and who would fall on Fortune’s wheel? Here everyone came from half a hundred planets, trying to tip the wheel in their favour. Many would return home by Snoke’s secret shuttles and deny ever having been here. Snoke was a mostly invisible presence in the background, perhaps appearing to an inner circle in some private room where the favoured ones raised a glass to toast him, and themselves.

Kylo was ordered to attend, to meet the “good and great,” as Snoke called them. There they were, mingling in the Palace’s ballrooms, jockeying for position, vying for attention, trying to call how the deck of cards would fall in the contest between the First Order and the New Republic.

Kylo suffered from not having his mask. People would turn and talk behind their hands as he passed, telling each other _that was him,_ the Leader of the Knights of Ren. So _that’s_ what he looks like, they’d say. Eyes boring into him for a sign of weakness, him, the child-killer. The women, some of them, their eyes raking him up and down. He wished he had his lightsaber. He wanted to slash at them, to put their eyes out. But those were not the actions of an heir apparent. Snoke wanted him as the “acceptable face of power”.

This was very much Hux’s world, the dashing young officer that he was. When he was in the Palace, there was a crowd of fellow-officers around him. They were a hard-drinking crew and as the night wore on the volume grew around them, the raucous laughter with sharp edges. Hux stayed cool and sober at their centre. He avoided Kylo, though he would spare him a cold glance if they had to pass each other. They were losing good men in this war, his look said. If not for you, we could be ruling the Galaxy uncontested by now.

“My, you’re taller than I expected,” said a woman who’d appeared at Kylo’s elbow holding a drink. “My daughter, princess Luxelle, says she likes her men pale and interesting, but I’m sure you’re not what she had in mind. Don’t let me see you talking to her — you’re too dangerous.” She lowered her lashes slowly, sensuously, and looked up at him from under them. She was dressed in a sheath of some metallic fabric that clung to her curves. Her perfume was extreme.

If it had been the first such approach it might have been funny, but this particular evening had been rife with advances of all kinds: political, sexual and combative. He’d had enough.

“I’m sure you can sell her to somebody tonight,” he muttered and turned on his heel. Time to leave, definitely. Before he did something they would all regret.

When he got back to his room he was feeling too irritable to sleep, so he called Spikey on the comm, waking her up from wherever she slept. They’d done this before — he wanted somebody else to deal with the endless buckles and belts and layers of his formal clothes, and help with pulling off the long, tight boots he liked to wear. She could read to him while he had a bath, and maybe he’d be relaxed enough to sleep afterwards. Unless, nightmares… He needed distraction.

Kylo was ready for bed and Spikey had shut her book and gotten up to go, when he suddenly walked over, picked her up and put her on his bed. He had been going to tell her about the search for Rey, but instead he did this, almost without thinking.

“What!” she said crossly.

He sat down next to her, leaning into her and putting a hand on the nape of her neck. She eyed him, and it was not a friendly look.

“Hey. You’ve got the wrong woman. This is me.” She bugged her eyes at him. “You want sex, get one of the comfort girls. They’re good.”

“Maybe, but they’re ten minutes away. You’re right here.”

“Don’t be so fucking lazy! You, a future lord of the Galaxy, can’t be bothered to wait ten minutes for good sex. No, you’ll just put up with grudging don’t-really-want-it sex.” She suddenly grabbed his face in her hands and drew herself up so she was inches away from him, eyes boring into him. “Instead of me, you could spend the night with a woman who has the face of an _angel_ and the body of a _goddess_. A queen of the night.” She had her own powers of seduction. The power of words.

She was so tiny and crushable, but where would be the fun in that? He pulled her against him so he wouldn’t have to look into those implacable eyes. “Stop arguing.”

“Kylo, it’s me! We argue. If you want to not-argue, then don’t be in the same room as me.”

He had to laugh at that. Trust her to change the mood!

She put her hands against his chest, creating some space between them.

“You do want me though,” he growled into her hair. Which was wayward and soft as a cloud against his mouth.

“I want a lot of things! My enemies laid low, the Palace in ruins, and me far from here on a fast ship. I’m not stupid enough to try for any of them. Get off!”

“You want your freedom?” He tightened his arms around her. She made an angry sound.

“Don’t you start saying you’ll free me if I sleep with you. I fell for that twice already when I was young and stupid, I’m not falling for it again.” She raised her head to look at him again. “What is this? Power? You need to know you can make me do what you want? _Listen!_ You have power of life or death over me. So does practically everyone in this damned Palace. Even Vole has that power, if it comes right down to it. You force me like this, then bongo for you. You’ve proved you’re level with Vole. Happy?”

She was getting under his skin now. He didn’t know if he wanted her or not. He’d been curious to see what would happen. Some women look beautiful when they’re angry, he thought. She just looked angry. Her whole body vibrated with barely contained tension, fully alive with anger. He did enjoy that. Now she was holding onto him with one hand while jabbing him in the chest with the other, making this a conversation he couldn’t get out of. Well, he’d show her, he thought.

“Passion and lust lead to power. It’s the Sith way. You might as well enjoy it,” he said, and bent to kiss her ear.

“It’s the annoying way _. If_ you think this is some big Dark Side evil thing to do, then you know what? It’s fucking _trivial._ It’s not a big _gesture_ to the Dark, it’s a nuisance to me! I don’t know how many times I’ve been forced to admire some creepy bastard’s erection and tell him it’s the best thing _ever._ It’s practically in my job description.” Her voice was filled with scorn. “I mean, what do you think I am?” She put on a false high voice and fluttered her fingers. _“Oh, I’m a princess, don’t sully my purity!”_

“Shut up!”

“Me shut up? Hell no. In fact I’ll brag to everyone. ‘That’s Kylo Ren. I had a piece of that last night’, I’ll say. Whether I enjoyed it or not.”

“You have no morals at all, do you?”

“I have all the morals a slave can afford.”

They glared at each other for a moment. She was half kneeling on him, digging her kneecaps into him. They were eye to eye. Then she looked down and back up - almost an eyelash-flutter. But so unlike that woman who’d spoken to him earlier.

“You know, if I get one of the comfort women from upstairs, she will make you feel like you’re a lord of the Galaxy. One of the kings of all creation,” she said, coaxing him now.

“I don’t want to sleep with a prostitute.”

“A prostitute! Who sounds ignorant now? They are the glorious magicians of the bedroom. And besides, you sure as hell don’t want to sleep with me! You’re supposed to be Kylo Ren, Sith Lord, not Ky Low-rent, sleeps-with-servants.”

“I can’t believe you just said that!” he groaned, smothering a laugh. “How are you even still alive? Why hasn’t anyone strangled you before now?”

“I don’t waste my good wordplay on fools,” she said smugly. She turned her head slightly and looked back at him sidelong, a slightly mocking smile on her mouth. “Anyhow, there are other risks. For instance, you don’t look to me like you’re ready to be a father….”

Father? He flung her halfway across the room, appalled. She’d played her last card and it was a beauty. He was trumped.

“You really are a piece of work, aren’t you?”

She picked herself up, rubbing a bruise on her arm but apparently unfazed. “So, what kind of woman? Tall? Short? Slender? Curvy? Hair like a raven’s wing, skin like apple-blossom in spring, or as rich and dark as tea? Blonde as summer corn? Cute and giggly or posh and elegant?”

“Fuck off. I don’t know. Tall and blonde, and doesn’t carry on like an idiot.”

“I’ll send a woman that is like a princess of the dawn. You will feel like a new man tomorrow.” Spikey was limping from the throw, but still triumphant. She stopped at the door to say, “Have fun. Go hard.” He threw one of his boots at her but she slammed the door shut first, grinning.

* * *

 

  
Limping or not, Spikey’s feet carried her up to the comfort wing of the Palace as though she had wings and her heart was equally light. She knocked on the door of the girls’ common room. A voice from inside yelled “Come in!”

“Emergency!” said Spikey as soon as she came in. A number of graceful, scantily clad women looked up from their pastimes, which seemed to consist mainly of reading, cards and craft hobbies. “Well, not really an emergency. But my assignment needs some help from one of you, pretty damn quick. Preferably somebody tall and blonde.”

Lissa looked in from another room. “Oh, you’ve got that delicious-looking tall man. I’ll go. What’s his temper like?”

“Pffft. Bad. Gagging for some action in bed, I think.”

Lissa laughed. “Did he lay hands on you, then? Oh look at you, you poor sweetie, you’ve got bruises!”

“Only ‘cos I argued. Show him a good time, you’ll be fine.”

“Oh I will. Use my chitarra if you like, while I’m gone. If you’re still here when I get back, we can test out those massage oils we made.” Lissa had been touching up her hair and makeup with lightning speed as they spoke. She went into her room and brought out the chitarra for Spikey. Then she shrugged on an elegant cover-all robe, and with it the air of professionalism: a cool untouchability that suited her regal looks.

Spikey noodled on the chitarra for a while. Two of the girls were playing a word game, and Spikey offered up guesses when she had them. The three girls in the corner were making a counterpane for a sister’s baby, and Spikey went over to admire their work. She heard about their families, and played some music to entertain them while they sewed. It was a comfortable scene. Spikey thought right now she should be happy.

Happy. Or some feeling. It was a bit frightening to have feelings again, after so long living in the dead zone. The first day she’d gone to work for Kylo, she would have walked into his lightsaber if he’d drawn it, so little did she care for her tomorrows. But now?

Her fingers strayed over an old song. Andala looked up from some tiny picture she was working on. “I know that one!” She hummed along and started to sing. Spikey, seeing that Andala was secure in the descant, joined in with the countermelody. Everyone paused in what they were doing, surprised by the sudden sweetness.

_My heart is cool as the moon,_  
_Waxing and waning as I watch you._  
_Wake, my fire-hearted lover_  
_You will see me all, all alight_  
_Disrobe to burn out this brief night._

_My thoughts about you outnumber the stars,_  
_Come lie with me, we will name them,_  
_One by one._

Spikey herself was surprised by her own singing. A long time ago she had trained hard and passionately, with nothing more than a child’s voice to show for it in the end. A big disappointment. She hadn’t seriously tried to sing in all the years of her servitude. Clearly things had changed in that time! She kept her voice reined in, accompanying first Andala and then some of the others as they joined in. But there was power in reserve. She could feel it, and longed to stretch it out.

Lissa came back after a few hours. Andala took one look at her face and laughed. “Ah, the happy hooker!”

“Sometimes I love my job,” said Lissa, laughing in return.

“Nothing kinky with a lightsaber then?” asked one of the others.

“That is not _funny!”_ said a young man in the corner, with an injured voice.

“Yeah, sorry, it’s not,” said Lissa, grimacing. “I forgot, Hennet. But honestly Spikey, why did you run away? You’ve had to sleep with your assignments before, at least he’s not some shrivelled old creep!”

“I dunno.”

Spikey thought about it while Lissa, as promised, tried out a few of her massage oils on her. Lissa was well practiced at avoiding bruises; Spikey felt her body extend and relax. Her thoughts wandered freely. Why didn’t she want to sleep with Kylo? Or rather, despite wanting to, why did she refuse?

When she was a child, she remembered her uncle and his friends sitting around the dinner table arguing whether a person owned their body or inhabited it or _was_ it. The body was a vehicle for the mind and the senses, said one. That’s impossible, argued another, when our minds are in thrall of hormones and hungers that madden us, calm us and enlighten us. We are our bodies, she’d said. Another claimed that our bodies are only on loan from the universe, between birth and death.

All useful to consider when she lost her freedom a scant few years later. Spikey sold her virginity at eighteen as a calculated transaction. A failed transaction, as it turned out. She had been too trusting. From then on she had no truck with the belief that anyone could take anything from her by using her body. She had her youth, her health, her strong heart and her undivided soul; the people who used her did not and never would. They were contemptible in their hypocrisy, their souls fractured by jealousy and ambition. They took nothing from her, and she waged petty wars on their self-assurance. She was a skilful underminer. Having had her once, men didn’t want her back, though mostly they couldn’t have said why.

Kylo though, was something else. The smell of him, those long sinewy hands, his lips in her hair. Her heart would betray her with him. If she slept with him, she would enslave herself and that was intolerable to her. And he was a man who made bad choices, choices that would destroy him. She sensed that, even without asking about his past. Either he was damned by his own choices, or he was born mad. If he chose to sleep with Spikey, that almost guaranteed that it was a bad idea.

And it was alarming that he hadn’t just wanted sex. _That_ he could have taken, and there was nothing she could have done. But instead he’d been trying to make her want it too. Playing some sort of cruel game with her feelings. Feelings were dangerous.

All men must eat, must sleep. That was Spikey’s domain. She could control those things. The servants called people like Kylo rathtars. Spikey sometimes wondered if this was related to the fact that rathtars are attended by small pecking creatures that kept their hides and fearsome teeth clean in return for their safety and a share of the leftovers. Successful servants were like that. Rathtars extended no such truce to their own kind. If they mated, one of them usually died of it. Usually they bred by fission, for that reason.

Love, lust, the Force: all belonged in the same pit of madness, one she would not willingly jump into.

* * *

 

Kylo had no nightmares that night, and woke still with a glow of sated pleasure making his limbs feel heavy. The comfort girl had been incredible, a flawless, icy beauty who had aroused him to fever heat with her cool, knowing eroticism. She, too, seemed to come alight with desire, a slow burn, making him work for it. And then she had showed him what their bodies could do together, and it was very, very good. Just the distraction he needed.

Spikey came in, late and yawning. She looked at the rumpled bed where Kylo lay and said, “Somebody scored last night.” She pulled a small table over next to the bed and put the breakfast on it, then went around wiping and dusting surfaces. Kylo stared at her. She was had a lazy hip-swaying walk this morning, and she smelled of…

“I’m not the only one who scored last night, by the look of it. What’s that scent? You smell like a prostitute.”

“I smell like a whole high-class bordello,” she said, grinning. “I got a massage last night. Some of the girls have been making up massage oils, and lucky me, I got to be their test subject.” She cocked an eyebrow at him. “Lissa was positively glowing when she got back, by the way.” She caught his gathering frown and said quickly, “She didn’t tell me anything, of course not! Confidentiality is their first rule. But it looks like you made her happy.”

Spikey was positively glowing herself, he thought.

“Have you ever wondered what the comfort girls do when they’re not working?”

“Not really,” he said. Though now, he did.

“Just imagine, all those beautiful creatures, lounging around together all night wearing next to nothing except except jewellery…I bet you wonder….”

“What?”

“Handicrafts. You’ve never seen so much wool.” She told him all about the cosy domestic pursuits in the comfort girls’ common room, like a wholesome family scene in an old story.

Kylo snorted. It was rather funny. Spikey looked at him, and they smiled at each other, a relaxed, complicit look. The tension between them was gone. Everything felt right now, everything was in its place, as it should be. Spikey had her role, Lissa had different one, and he, Kylo, was properly taken care of. He could concentrate on his search for Rey.

* * *

  
There it was. A searchlight sweeping through a dense fog. She was looking for him too. No doubt with hatred for him in her heart. Well, he hated himself too, when he was alone with his thoughts. Spikey and the affairs of the Palace could only distract him, not heal what he’d done to himself. So perhaps she could see him more clearly than he saw her. She might find him first. It didn’t matter. The game would really only begin once they made their link.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


	19. Snoke and Mirrors

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo's shell is beginning to crack.
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>  
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> * * *

The next day Kylo was called in for another audience with Snoke, who wanted an update on the search for Rey. Kylo wondered how much Snoke could monitor his work with the Force. Interesting that he would call him now, when he was finally making progress.

“I can feel her Force signature. I felt it definitely for the first time a few days ago. It’s a faint presence, but now I have the technique, I think I can refine it enough to find her.”

Snoke leaned back in his throne. He seemed pleased.

“Good. This is subtle work.” He considered Kylo mildly for a while. He could stare for longer than anyone Kylo had ever met. The low, dreary music that always filled the Throne Room droned on. Today it filled Kylo with despair instead of awe. He waited for some move from Snoke. Nothing. Surely his connection with Rey deserved a better response than this?

All at once it struck him how ignoble it was to be always in this position, awaiting Snoke’s approval. Trying to read whether his actions found favour or not.

He felt like a man who has been walking for miles with a stone in his shoe, and only now realises the source of his discomfort.

Frustrated, he tried some of what he’d been practicing lately, casting the Force out very subtly towards Snoke. That mind like an old tree with deep snaking roots. Kylo made himself water and wind, seeping around that tree. At the same time, he tried to cover his Force reach with something like the reflective cover Sara Rem Nata used. It was difficult to hold two such radically opposed forms in mind, but today he felt the skill flow through him.

It worked.

Kylo became aware that very little of Snoke’s attention was on him. The cold tendrils of his mind were all bent towards Rey. From this strange new perspective, Snoke was a dreadful presence, and all focused on her. What he would do to her, what he could do with her…This insight into Snoke’s thoughts was so terrifying that Kylo froze for a moment. His mind felt dislocated, and not from anything Snoke was doing to him.

Then very carefully he let his mind sink away from Snoke’s, keeping up that same shiny, uninteresting surface to his thoughts. Operating on instinct, he stuffed his feelings down deep. Away from Snoke’s notice, he hoped. Later he would examine them, but not now.

Finally, all Snoke said was, “I trust you are enjoying your stay in my palace?”

“It’s very nice,” said Kylo carefully. What did this have to do with anything? Had Snoke noticed Kylo Force-reading him? He must pretend everything was normal. “But I have to wonder why I’m being trained like a Jedi by Sara Rem Nata and Hestar Litt. Afterwards I am served tea amongst the pretty statuary in the landscaped gardens. I’m not used to so much… gentleness.”

“In other words, you are bored,” said Snoke.

“You’ve spent years showing me the power of the Dark. My lessons have been painful. Fearful. I don’t understand why I am here, doing next to nothing. Cocktails with the upper ranks of First Order society, do I really need that?” The kind of questions Snoke would expect from Kylo.

Snoke snorted. “Once we win, then there is always the necessity to rule.” His voice suddenly rose to an almost-roar, in that unpredictable way he had. “AND WE WILL WIN!” His voice dropped. “And when we do, I need you and Hux to be the face of power, the face people see. And for that, I can’t have you be a snarling cur under the tables of the First Order’s great and good. You’ll be pleasant and eat canapés like everyone else.”

To think he’d hoped to run away from all those social obligations he’d hated so much as the child of a political dynasty, thought Kylo.

Snoke smiled nastily.

And now Kylo saw it clearly. The nastiness. It was as though he saw two Snokes, two holograms overlaying each other. His trust in Snoke’s benevolent mentorship was shaken, as if some persuasive spell was sliding off him. Snoke’s vision of a world where Kylo and Hux ruled an empire in Snoke’s name sounded completely unconvincing. A child would not believe it. But at the same time, as Snoke said it, Kylo felt it as his future. Incontestably his right!

With a superhuman effort, Kylo controlled his face and, he hoped, his feelings. Again, Snoke didn’t seem to notice. He was thinking about Rey.

“Kylo Ren, I have trained you to seize your Dark potential as much as I can,” he said. “And still you could not prevail against that girl…Who I believe had enough rage in her to make a fine Dark candidate. So, we must turn the tables. We must strengthen the side of you that has been neglected. I see no point in shutting you in a dark cell and sending masked attackers to challenge you. We’ve done that. You have enough death on your hands; you have proved you have the will to destroy even what you love, if it will bring you power.”

Snoke’s attention had returned fully onto Kylo. He felt something fade; the strange, skeptical presence that had awoken in him. An unsuspected shadow self.

Couldn’t Snoke see the failures in Kylo’s soul? That nothing he had done had quite extinguished his distaste for the slaughter of innocents? Snoke had taught him to desire the certainty of action, of violence. But after the act, the certainty burned away.

Kylo’s thoughts fell into a familiar spiral. He was weak…he had failed Snoke, and Snoke was already casting him aside, seeking out a better prospect in Rey.

Snoke smiled, certainly reading Kylo’s mind this time, which was surely leaking panic. “STOP! Stop _fussing!”_

Kylo flinched. He was being chided like a child. His feelings ripped him to pieces, and Snoke called it “fussing”.

“You waste so much energy with these pointless debates with yourself. ‘Are you Dark enough? Will the Light corrupt you?’ Understand that you have no choice! What you have done puts you beyond the pale of the Light. It is irredeemable and irreversible. Even now your mother cries into her pillow, weakened by what you have done. Nobody will ever forgive you for it. Don’t imagine you might take any other course now.

“Your apprenticeship has been hard, and it is not over yet. But it is time learn other roles. As a Knight, I do not foresee you grovelling in some stone hermit’s cell meditating on that helmet for the rest of your life. You will rule the Galaxy.

“I am not the kind of fool that simply repeats the same lessons over and over,” continued Snoke. “More of the same will not make you stronger. So, we find other lessons. Now go! I expect you to find the girl soon.”

Kylo bowed deeply and walked slowly back to his rooms, trying to hold his panic at arm’s length. Whatever he might say to Kylo’s face, he knew Snoke hadn’t forgiven his recent failures and now Kylo was only useful because as a means to finding Rey.

He couldn’t even begin to untangle his feelings about Rey right now. They were an mess of hatred and jealousy for the way she was ousting him from Snoke’s favour. But what he’d glimpsed of Snoke’s plans filled him with pity and horror too. She was to be Snoke’s special project, as he had been.

A few months ago the idea of Snoke abandoning him would have filled him with uncontrollable rage and fear. And it was there still: a shaky hollowness in his gut, and the desire to drive it out with violence. He very much wanted to take his lightsaber and tear up the world with it, right here and now. The Kylo Ren of a few months ago would have done exactly that. But something had happened in the time since then, enough that he could stand aside from _that_ Kylo Ren and know that he had changed.

Once, Snoke had convinced him that it was better to have a brief life that left a mark. To burn a bright path through history, and then oblivion. He had always believed Snoke would offer him that. Outcast by all others, Snoke would accept him and honour his sacrifice, even if he sent him to his death.

But now he’d read Snoke’s mind past the surface layers, and it seemed as though Snoke was laughing as he lied to him. This new skeptical part of Kylo wanted more from life than to be Snoke’s sacrifice, or die as the butt of a cruel joke.

“Nobody would ever forgive him.” Was it true, what Snoke said? Kylo had done the worst he could do, and still his father had never stopped looking into his eyes, not for a moment.

Kylo paced around his room, wringing his hands. The sick, shaky feeling in his stomach wouldn’t go. How could he live like this, dependant on Snoke’s approval, loyal to him, yet filled with such treacherous thoughts?

Unconsciously, Kylo stroked the spot on his cheek where his father had touched him.

Finally, desperate to escape his thoughts, he dropped onto his bed and dredged up enough self-control to meditate. This was the second time in a day that he’d forced his mind into unfamiliar channels, but to his surprise, his skill prevailed again. He could enforce some kind of fragile peace in his head. There, he imagined a space for this new independent Kylo. He sunk him deep into a secret compartment of his mind, hidden by that bland, shiny surface he’d copied from Sara Rem Nata.

He couldn’t deny this part of himself, but he wasn’t going to listen to its demands either.

“I accept you,” he said aloud. “Now shut up.”

More than ever now, he needed to find Rey. 


	20. Assassin

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lots of people want Kylo Ren dead. Some are sneakier than others.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah. Yesterday AO3 dropped my connection and who knows what happened? Looked like I posted Chapter 19 three times. And today I deleted two, and all three disappeared. Now one is back. Hopefully this No 20 will be the correct No 20.

Spikey leaned over the stone coping of the snorber pens. Something was wrong. This morning they had rollicked up to her and stuck their funny snouts to whiffle for her handouts. They’d leaned into her hands while she rubbed their rough nubbly necks.

But now they seemed listless. All of them were lying down. They liked to sunbathe in the dustbaths they created, but they always surged up and came trotting over when they saw her with her hotbox of Kylo’s food from the kitchens. They were possibly the only inhabitants of the Palace who truly loved it. Spikey clucked her tongue at them. One of them rolled its eyes at her and made an odd, mewling groan. It tried to get up but its legs only scrabbled weakly at the ground. As she watched with growing horror, she realised one of the others was convulsing. Its long jaws were dripping with green foam.

Spikey dashed away to look for help. There was an oddly-named Bestiary Office that managed the non-human living things of the Palace, both practical and ornamental. Nobody was there though, and she made a skidding turn towards the garden tool-and-droid sheds. They seemed to be the gathering point for everyone that worked outdoors. A crowd of garden droids scuttled out of her way as she burst through the entrance. One or two people looked around in surprise.

“There’s something wrong with the snorbers! They’re all lying down and one of them is having convulsions I think. They can’t seem to get up!” she cried. One of the older men gave a huff of annoyance and jerked his head at a scruff-bearded younger man. “Sol can help. I can’t stand the stinking things.”

Sol, however, looked concerned. He matched Spikey’s pace as they ran back to the snorbers. By now there was no doubt something was very wrong. One of the others was lying almost on its back, flailing madly with one of its legs. As they watched, it gave a great heaving sigh and went limp. Sol leapt over the wall and crouched down beside its head. He gave Spikey a stunned look.

“Dead.” He inspected the others, smelt the foam on their jaws. “I think they’ve eaten something poisonous.”

A horrible suspicion had come into Spikey’s head. But how to handle this? If what she suspected was true, how many people could be trusted to know it? She called Sol over and whispered urgently, “Sol, can you find out if it is poison?” She answered the question in his eyes. “I’ve been feeding them meals from the big kitchens. Stuff that’s meant to go to my assignment.”

“What? That makes no sense!” said Sol.

“No no! I make other food for my client, stuff he prefers. But nobody knows that. So I’m thinking the snorbers got something that was meant for _him._ Find out, but keep it a secret.” Sol’s eyes lit up with excitement. She had to convince him to keep him quiet. “Look, if somebody’s poisoning clients, that person is dangerous as fuck. Try to find out, but tell nobody, or we’re all in danger. You too!” She had no idea if that was convincing or likely, but she could hope…..

“I’ll have to get a vet….he’ll test for poison. I’ll warn him it’s dangerous to talk about, though.”

“Are you round this evening? I’ll be back then. Meet me here round seven? I have to go….”

Sol nodded seriously, and Spikey ran back to her quarters to finish Kylo’s lunch. Could she be sure that was safe, though? The food sat around most of the day in her coolbox, awaiting the final prep and cooking she was doing now. Who knew that she made Kylo’s meals? Knives and spatulas flashed in her hands as she thought, hard. She brightened at one thought. Kylo could read minds. He would know she wasn’t the one intending to kill him; he might be able to find out who did. This was going to be an interesting conversation.

On fire with the drama of it all, she sprinted to Room 25, knocked hastily and charged in. Kylo was sitting stiffly in a straight-backed chair looking snarly. He generally sat there when he was doing the mental exercises that seemed to leave him filled with frustration. Lately he looked like he was getting no sleep, and a jittery blackness radiated from him.

“Do you have to crash through that door every time?” he shouted. She could see too much of the whites of his eyes.

“Listen, I have to talk to you.”

Kylo seemed about to bite her head off. Of all times for Kylo to be a dick, she thought. But then he caught her mood and signalled for her to continue.

She stabbed her finger at the lunch. “When I make you food, I still collect your official meals from the big kitchen. I’d be in trouble if they knew I was doing this, so I pretend everything’s the same. Then I throw their food out to these farm-animals we have in the Palace called snorbers. They love it.”

“They must be very stupid animals then.” Kylo got up and started pacing around, shooting impatient looks at her.

“Yeah, yeah. They make great bacon. Anyway today the snorbers are really sick. One of them is dead and I don’t think the rest are far off. I think they’ve been poisoned.”

Kylo drew up and swung round with frightening energy, staring at her.

“We don’t know yet for sure yet,” said Spikey, feeling almost flayed by the intensity of his stare. “I don’t know what else they might have eaten. I’ll go back later today and find out what the vet found. If it is poison, one of the animal wranglers knows, and the vet will know, but I’ve warned them that it would be very dangerous to tell anyone else. We have no idea who might be involved.”

She had never seen him like this before: the dangerous beast awoken from its torpor. Sure, he often snapped at her like a great hunting creature snapping at a fly, but that seemed like the reflexive action of an soul otherwise lost in a fog. But now he was focused and filled with a electric tension.

“Who wants you dead?” she asked, after watching his pacing for a while.

“A lot of people.”

“OK. So, do we want to go out all guns blazing, call up a huge security alert and interrogate everyone? Or do we do this by stealth?” she asked.

Kylo stopped his restless circling and lunged towards her, grabbing her by the shoulder and chin.

“What’s this ‘we’? For all I know it was you! Was it you?” He was using the Force to get into her mind like a knife. It was brutal. Spikey braced herself and bore with it. He seemed to be flailing around like a madman with a net. It was utterly unlike what her brother used to do, which felt more like a fierce game of mental speed chess. Or what Spikey used to call “hide-the-lie”. But in this case, Spikey had nothing to hide. She waited him out. After what seemed a very long time, Kylo pulled back. He let go of her and threw himself into a chair. She dropped into another one.

“I have a briefing meeting this afternoon. If Hux or any of his people are behind this, I’ll sense it.”

“Hang on, we’re not sure it’s poison. Maybe the snorbers caught some animal virus and we’re reacting over nothing. But in any case, if you go in that meeting and hack your way through anyone’s brain like you just did to me now, that’s going to stir things up. Do you really want to do that?”

Kylo sat chewing his lips. He had big lips and big teeth. Spikey found she had to look away.

“I should be able to catch anyone looking surprised to see me still alive,” he said. “But you’re right, Hux and his men are always suspicious around me, and they know me. I wouldn’t be able to use the Force to question them without them noticing. If the assassin is one of the people in the room, I could catch them. But if it’s somebody else, then all that will happen is the assassin get to hear that I’m making enquiries, and they’ll disappear.”

“Travel off planet is so tightly controlled,” said Spikey. “Nobody leaves except on one of Snoke’s secret shuttles. You should be able to find out who tries to leave, and stop them.”

“Get the chief of security for me.”

Spikey used the room’s comm unit to call Bartin Hork, the chief of security, without stating their business. She had never spoken to him before. One had to assume he could be trusted, but who knew, she wondered. Hork said he would be down immediately. Meanwhile Kylo was following his own train of thought.

“Could an assassin disappear without going off-planet?”

Spikey stopped to consider. She hadn’t seen much of the place in her time here, but she knew there was plenty of land on this planet. Entire continents. Near the Palace there were a few low-tech towns and villages, farmlands, forests, mountains. The cities had mostly been destroyed in old wars, and the land reduced to an agricultural tribute, and there was no lack of space for somebody to vanish. They’d be stuck here, though.

“Yeah, they could. It’s huge, there’s plenty of land to hide amongst. Not many people though. It’s been an abandoned world. Hey, has anyone seen you since this morning? If they haven’t, you should sense the shock from some person who doesn’t expect you to be alive this afternoon!”

Kylo winced. He hadn’t thought of that. “I went for a walk in the gardens. There were a few people around. Diplomats, some military people. I think we can assume any assassin knows I’m still alive.”

“Damn. But look, there’s the other end of things we can search as well,” Spikey said. “The assassin probably had to have an accomplice actually put the poison in the food. If there was poison, I mean. Somebody in the kitchens.”

“It could have been a droid.”

“Okay, but somebody could have seen something unusual.”

“How many people would be involved with the food?”

“About forty or so would go through the kitchens in a day.”

“We’ll try that if I don’t find anything at the briefing.”

For some reason, both of them became aware at the same time that the lunch Spikey had made was sitting on the table going cold. A faint, delicious steam came off it. They stared at it.

“I’m not going to be your food taster,” said Spikey after a while. Kylo put his head in his hands. Spikey sighed. “It’s probably fine.” She ate a few bites.

Hork arrived just then. Kylo opened the door to him and ushered him in with a hand on his shoulder. “So good of you to make time to come down….” They talked pleasantly for a moment about Kylo’s desire for a couple of security drones to patrol outside the room, not for any specific reason, but just as a precaution….Just as Spikey was thinking this was very odd behaviour for Kylo, she saw Hork’s face go slack and blank. Kylo was stared intently into his eyes and Hork looked almost as though he was hanging off Kylo’s hand on his shoulder. After a few minutes, his eyes seemed to clear.

“Well, thank you. I’m sure it’ll be no trouble at all,” said Hork inanely, and left.

“What was that?” said Spikey.

“I put the suggestion in his head that he will send me a copy of the passenger manifests for the offworld ships. And he will forget this conversation. Apart from posting the security drones, that is.”

“Can you do that? Hang on, what if the assassin did the same thing? Used the Force to make somebody poison the food, and they’ll have no memory of doing it?”

“Then I have a different problem. I’ve never met anybody who can do that. For now, let’s concentrate on the people I know who hate me most.”

“You mean Hux, right?”

Kylo stared at the floor for a moment. He looked almost sad. Then his expression hardened and he nodded, one jerk of his head.

There was another knock on the door, and Spikey opened it to Sol, who evidently couldn’t let his news wait until the evening. He looked terrified to find himself in the one of the Palace’s elite rooms. His eyes darted nervously around the elegant furnishings. He could barely look at Kylo at all.

“Go on, tell me,” said Spikey encouragingly. “Has the vet been already?”

“Yes. It’s definitely poison. He had some device that could do an assay right away… it’s this, he said.” He gave her a card with the name of the poison, which meant nothing to Spikey. She gave it to Kylo, who raised his eyebrows but said nothing.

“Okay, is that all? Go on then, and say nothing. Anyone at all could be involved.” Sol looked relieved to go.

Spikey and Kylo found themselves both staring at the lunch again.

“You know, I could get that assay device from the vet, if you like,” said Spikey.

“That might be a good idea.”

 

 

 

 

 

 


	21. Watching and Waiting

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Spikey try to set traps for his assassin, and Kylo gets a warning from Snoke.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The sun was burning Kylo’s back and sweat trickled down his spine as he lay prone on the roof of the Palace. He and Spikey were lying shoulder to shoulder looking down on the big kitchens through a high clerestory window. Every time somebody came in, she would murmur their name and function and anything else she thought was important. Kylo used the Force to drop into each mind as gently as he could manage, subtly testing them for any sign of guilt or nervousness, and gently prompting them to recall any unusual activity they might have seen in the past few days. These were unsuspicious people, busy about their work, totally unaware that they were being observed. Moreover, Spikey’s familiarity with them acted as a sort of guide-rope or a key that helped him step into their thoughts almost undetected, so long as she was focused on them.

This was a technique he was exploring after reading that story a while ago. Very different to the interrogations he normally did. Instead, he would find the right image for that mind, whether it was a ball of string, a stack of objects or a set of nesting boxes, and imagine the tool to reach inside it. Easily. Subtly.

It was good practice, and he was pleased at how he was mastering it. If he did manage to make a stronger link with Rey, this kind of delicate control would be very useful. But they’d been here since before dawn, and had nothing to show for it except possibly sunburnt arms. Every now and then he had to nudge Spikey awake.

Spikey tipped up their container of water. It was empty. “I have to go down and pretend to get your lunch. It’s late so there shouldn’t be many people coming in before I get back. I’ll get some more water.” She slithered off down the tiles and disappeared over the guttering via some gargoyle thing.

The briefing meeting the previous day had been a complete washout. Kylo had made sure to arrive early, but Hux was already there, back from whatever mission Snoke had given him. The moment they laid eyes on each other, such a voltage of loathing had jumped between them that Kylo couldn’t control himself. Before either of them could speak, he’d forced his way into Hux’s mind. But there was nothing there concerning Kylo except dislike, uneasily tempered by Hux’s other, more suppressed feelings for Kylo. Still not completely eradicated, then. Hux blushed red with outrage at Kylo’s reading. But Kylo could find nothing else he was trying to hide. Apparently Hux knew nothing about the poison. And Kylo was pretty sure he hadn’t given away what he was searching for inside Hux’s mind.

Kylo got out of his head, and Hux sat down at one end of the meeting table, looking daggers at him. A couple of lieutenants walked in just then. Having missed the confrontation with Hux, they greeted Kylo with insincere-sounding congratulations on his recovery from the fight on Starkiller Base. Various dignitaries and officers filed in, bowing and saluting all round. Everyone seemed calm and unsurprised by Kylo’s presence. Though not exactly pleased. As usual in these meetings, Kylo was aware that he represented a party of one versus everyone else. It was true that he also represented a certain area of Snoke’s interests that the others must defer to, but often Snoke’s Force interests ran counter to the military view of things.

He kept mostly silent. There was a lot of news to catch up on. The First Order’s attacks on the New Republic amounted to little more than terrorist actions while the New Republic tried to regroup around its electoral process. The propaganda war was fairly lively on both sides. Win the hearts and minds…who had said that? The First Order promised just that: order, and people all over the Galaxy were sick of war. Stupid how people kept wrangling and wrangling, making things worse for themselves, when a bit of strong leadership would go a long way to solving most of their problems, he thought. Not that this roomful of First Order leaders set much of an example, arguing like a nest of viperoids. He wished Snoke’s hologram would appear and whip them into line. What did Snoke do all day, anyway? Kylo suppressed that question, as usual.

As the unproductive afternoon dragged on, Kylo would dip into the minds of people who seemed the most distracted and involved in their arguments. Sifting carefully, softly, through their plans, trying to remain unnoticed. By the time the meeting broke up, he was sure. The assassin was not here, nor was anybody aware of any plans to kill him.

He had left the meeting feeling exhausted. That level of hostility was tiring, even more so when he was not actively fighting an opponent as he did during a normal interrogation.

Now, Kylo watched Spikey enter the kitchen and collect the tray with his official lunch on it. She joked briefly with some other person that was scrubbing down a benchtop. Minutes later she was back on the roof carrying more water and what she called “Awful Bread” as well as the lunch. They ran the assayer over it that she’d got from the vet the previous evening. All clear. Kylo chewed morosely on it and reflected that he’d been quite spoilt lately. The afternoon wore on. Spikey fell asleep three times and he had to elbow her awake when anyone came in to the kitchen that he needed to scan.

“When I was in training I was expected to stay awake for 48 hours at a stretch.”

“Sounds awful. Couldn’t you cheat? Where was this, anyway?”

“No. This was the Black Dojo. They sent assassins to hunt you. Any time of the day or night.”

“Oh yeah. The Black Dojo. My sister mentioned it. Like it was a promotion or something. She made it to the Black Dojo, but she wouldn’t tell us anything about it.” Spikey craned her neck slightly. “Oh look. Nereda’s just walked into the kitchen. She’s the unofficial queen…everyone likes her, or wants to be her friend. I don’t know…I think she tells on people, rats them out to Vole, but I can’t be sure.”

Kylo floated into Nereda’s mind as gently as he could. Nothing untoward there. A web, lots of strings going everywhere. She wanted power, in her own small way. But no thoughts of murder, and she hadn’t seen anything unusual.

It was after dark by the time they shinnied down the solid carved downpipe and walked along the series of walls that let them down to the ground at last. They parted ways, Spikey to make dinner and Kylo back to his room to brood on this mysterious assassin. When Spikey came in later with food, he was ravenous. She laid out two plates and ate next to him for the first time. He made no comment. Obviously she’d spent all day on this wild womp-rat chase for him, she had had no time to look after herself.

Afterwards he had her run a bath. As before, he had her scrub his back and wash his hair. Washing off the sweat and stiffness of a disappointing day. It felt different. Awkward, almost. When she’d finished his hair he caught her by one arm and pulled her around to face him, sitting beside the bath.

“What do you get out of this?” he asked. She shook her head with a grimace he couldn’t interpret. But the picture was so clear in her head, he didn’t even have to reach in. A bird stuffed into a too-small cage, its wings straining out of the grotesquely thick bars. “You think I can free you? You don’t belong to me, you belong to Snoke.”

She jerked out of his grasp. “I don’t expect it,” she said sullenly. Used to disappointment. “You make life more interesting, that’s all.”

“Go, get some sleep.” He waved her away. The thought of him helping anyone else seemed ludicrous to him. That wasn’t the sort of power he had. It was a depressing thought.

* * *

 

Kylo had managed to get a message to Snoke before his briefing meeting the previous day but, as so often, Snoke didn’t reply immediately. Kylo had often wondered why Snoke was so unavailable sometimes. As though he went somewhere where no message could find him. Be that as it may, Snoke called him into the Throne Room first thing in the morning the day after Kylo and Spikey’s day on the roof of the kitchens. The way his inhumanly long fingers drummed on the edge his throne did not bode well. “You believe somebody in the Palace is trying to kill you?”

Kylo rose from his deep obeisance. “Yes. One of my meals was thrown into one of the domestic animal pens because I did not eat it, and all the creatures were taken ill. One of them died. They were examined by a veterinary expert with an assayer, who found poison.”

Snoke rose out of his throne in a fury. “Always this! _Always!_ The people I command can never rise above their petty bickering to serve me as I require! Do you know how many times I have had to deal with this kind of mindless, vicious, undermining conflict between my subordinates? It is our biggest weakness, Kylo. We raise a force that should conquer worlds, and it is threatened with destruction by our inability to cooperate!”

“It might have been an outsider. Someone from the Resistance,” Kylo said.

“It might be, but I doubt it. Sara Rem Nata is a kind of assayer too, you know: an assayer of minds. She and her disciples sweep the minds of the Palace for traitors daily. Small discontents and disagreements they ignore, but anyone so hostile to the First Order as to contemplate your murder would be picked up immediately. I will tell her to intensify her observations.”

Snoke looked at Kylo in a way that caught at him and made his heart swell with pride, and said kindly, “I have waited such a long time for a disciple with as much promise as you, Kylo. I do not want to see you murdered.”

Kylo knew Snoke could influence people’s emotions. He saw him do it to other people. But his eyes now, looking into Kylo’s, were almost luminous with the approval Kylo had craved all his life. What on earth had he been thinking the other day? Had he really doubted this?

Then Snoke’s voice hardened slightly. “On the other hand, nobody should be able to get to you so easily. There will always be those who seek to depose you. It is the curse of power. Use your power to find this would-be assassin.”

Kylo bowed again, and outlined how he planned to find him or her. Snoke had little more to suggest, beyond promising to have the shuttle passenger lists scanned to see if any suspects could be identified.

“Before you go: I want you to use the people and things of the Palace freely — they’re there for your comfort. But beware. Always, there will be people who want to use you for their own purposes. You’ve seen this already in the society you mix with in the Palace now. You’ll see people try to make you their their ally. You no longer wear the mask, and I am pleased that you are able to handle yourself in polite society as a Lord of the Galaxy should. But people will take your unmasking as a sign that you are ready to entertain a more, shall we say, _human_ connection with them. Do not be drawn in! Those people are there for your use. Not the other way around.”

Kylo bowed his way out of the hall. The glow of Snoke’s approval buoyed him up, and he felt a chilly resolve enter his heart. The First Order did not realise that they were merely Snoke’s game pieces. The power would always rest with Snoke and his chosen elite, coiled in the heart of the Dark Side. He smiled to himself, looking down his nose as he passed some poor wretch grovelling in the corridor outside, cleaning.

 

 

 

 

 


	22. First Contact

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo makes contact with Rey.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The next morning there didn’t seem to be anything for Kylo to do. The search for his potential assassin was at a standstill. Four shuttles had left the Palace on the same morning as the attempted poisoning, and many of the people on board had been considered too unimportant to watch closely. It was too late now.

Another sharp late summer storm had rolled in overnight, and rain was drumming on the ground outside. The reason for the sunken and walled gardens was obvious, as the planet’s fierce equinoctal winds scythed over the plateau in which the Palace was embedded. Kylo pulled a chair up by the open windows, well sheltered under the deep porch. He started on his search exercises, centring himself in the Force first. These days he was imagining the dead inertia and frustration of his position as a kind of stone, a weight, and using it as the focus of his meditation. Making the blackness of misery into a power in itself. It was not like using the fresh vitality of rage, which had an immediate strength. But he was learning that it could be done. Turning a weakness into power like this was no small thing. And once again, like his subtle searching of people’s minds, this was something he had found himself, with no guidance from Snoke or Sara Rem Nata.

For too many days he had burned with jealousy, suspecting Rey of eclipsing him in Snoke’s regard. But hating her wasn’t going to help him find her. He needed to get past that emotion. It was difficult, but he managed, aware that the Kylo Ren of a few months ago could not have done so. The violence in him was being tempered into something equally fierce, but more focused.

So here he was now, floating freely in an eddy of the Force that was not of the Light, yet had a stillness that allowed him to cast his mind out, searching. Thinking small, easy thoughts about Rey and where she might be. Not pushing, just…..floating.

Rain lashed down. He wondered how things were on her island. He believed she was on the island he had seen in her vision, though he had no clear idea why he believed this. It was a sort of foreknowledge in her, he felt. In this new free-associating state he didn’t question that but let his imagination follow where it led.

It had been a green, green island with a vast ocean around it. He wondered if it rained there. Was she sitting, like him, watching it rain endlessly? Like him, bored?

And she was.

He had a curious sensation of doubled vision for a moment. He could see the warm rain in his own courtyard, flaying the leaves. And he could also see it hissing off grey stones in a cold landscape of rock and emerald-green grass, seen from inside a ship’s exit hatch. Vast grey waves broke roaring at the edge of the rock platform where the ship rested, and the watcher looked at them unhappily. Their constant noise and motion made her anxious, and the rain wore away at her mood. She was a desert creature, used to quiet and dry open spaces, to things not moving. The ever-restless sea frayed her nerves, especially now when it reached towards the ship with violent power, crests blown back in steaming manes of spray.

She was supposed to be meditating. She was as bored and frustrated as he was.

_That was the hatch of the Millennium Falcon she was looking out of!_

His feelings about that jolted her into an awareness of him.

_You!_ Shock. Then anger and fear. How had he found her first, she wondered.

_So you were looking for me too._

_Yes._

_Why?_ he asked. She blocked the answer, but he sensed her curiosity. Now in some intangible Force space, they circled around each other like wrestlers, making small parries and feints to test each other. It seemed after a while that they came to the same conclusion: neither could overpower the other. They could communicate, but could get no purchase on each other to attempt anything more.

_So, enjoying your training with Luke?_ asked Kylo, guessing.

_He knows a lot,_ she replied, evasively. Was that an overtone of disappointment? _What is Snoke teaching **you?**_ Her question carried a mental sneer. Scorn. But touché, maybe she guessed that he wasn’t getting much more from his trainers than she was.

_I’m going to find you,_ he said, changing the subject.

_Or I’ll find you. And I know a lot more than I did,_ she replied with a simple certainty that shook him. _Now I’ve got a teacher._

_A teacher of the weak,_ he said. _I won’t hold back next time._

_Monster!_ she blazed back at him. So determined.

_I know, you still want to kill me. We’ll see…._

_Creep!_

Both of them cut contact as though by mutual agreement before they descended to more name-calling; surely an ignoble use of the Force whichever side you were on. Kylo grounded himself in the physical reality of his room and the rainswept garden in front of him, then jumped out of his chair and started to pace fast laps around the room. Triumph! He’d made the Force-link work. Or they both had. But there was also an uncomfortable feeling twisting in his gut. He’d held his age and experience over her, conscious of his superiority. Taunting her, almost. But that didn’t negate her natural power. She wasn’t intimidated. He was a grown man teasing a schoolgirl. Not even a schoolgirl, since she’d never been to school. An ignorant young peasant.

But she didn’t see it that way. Status, knowledge, instinct. She weighed them differently to him.

He’d show her! He sat down on the bed, looking at Vader’s helmet. For once, it seemed to send a jolt of Force straight to him, filling him with certainty. He was going to prevail. Feeling energised, he gave a great stretch from fingertips to toes, and moved over to Sara Rem Nata’s latest project: a set of terrariums whose inhabitants he was meant to study using the Force. Calmly he settled in for a little more work, feeling almost content.

 


	23. Beating, Aftermath, and Rejecting the Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spikey's misdeeds catch up with her and Kylo commits new ones
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Lately people were beginning to notice how much food Spikey was making, because when she wasn’t doing cleaning and laundry for Room 25, or repeating endless forms and patterns on the chitarra, she did little else but forage and cook. Vole found her mysteriously absent from any work parties involved in keeping the Palace fresh and bright, yet she couldn’t pretend to cleaning Kylo’s quarters all the time.

One day recently she had run into Nereda, on her headlong rush to deliver lunch. Nereda would probably be one of her least favourite colleagues. She seemed friendly and funny, with an easy smile. She invited confidences, and more than once Spikey had joined her where she held court in the kitchens, the centre of a laughing group sharing outrageous stories of things they’d seen their clients do, and little transgressions they’d gotten away with. And yet, much as she enjoyed the hilarity, Spikey left feeling that she’d told too much about herself, more than she should have. And it seemed more than coincidental the way people got caught and punished shortly after they’d let their guard down with Nereda.

“Hey, you’re running pretty late with lunch aren’t you?” said Nereda that day, as Spikey trotted towards her, tray and hotbox balanced in her arms. Spikey flapped a hand in a can’t-talk-now gesture and carried on. “Here, let me help you with that,” said Nereda, falling into step beside her.

“No, really I’m fine.”

“I heard your assignment’s a real rathtar. How are you getting on with him?”

“Fine. The main person I have to watch out for is Vole. Kylo Ren is just snarly. He’s mostly depressed, to be honest.”

“The depressed ones are the worst. One day they just snap, and shoop-vroom-shoop, you’re down a couple of limbs.”

“Thanks for that nugget of joy. I look forward to fun times at the medbay, then.”

Nereda made a cute little moue and laughed. “I’m only warning you. Hey, what’s that smell?”  
“Lunch. Hey, we’re here. You want to serve this?” asked Spikey, knowing Nereda wouldn’t, and desperate to get rid of her. She could see Nereda’s nostrils flaring, and she was staring curiously at the hotbox. Which did not smell like anything the big kitchen served.

“No, I’ll leave you that pleasure,” said Nereda merrily. “You’re doing a great job, Vole must think highly of you to keep giving you the tough ones like this. I mean, he hits everyone.” She turned and went back the other way.

Am I? thought Spikey. She thought it was obvious Vole just wanted her dead. 

* * *

 

A few days after the kitchen stake-out Vole caught up with Spikey at last, just as she was slinging Kylo’s official lunch into the snorber pens. Most of them had recovered from the poisoning attempt. The morning’s hard storm had given them new mud to delight in and they were pretty happy. Spikey was leaning over to scratch their stubbly backs when she felt a weight slam into her, driving her ribs painfully against the rails of the pen.

“I’d heard you were doing this, but I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes!” shouted Vole, spinning her round so he could shout in her face.

“He hates the stuff!” yelled Spikey.

“You’re feeding him slave food instead! Do you have any idea how insulting that is to a future leader of the Galaxy?”

Spikey thought, not for the first time, that Vole must live in some alternate reality. He was as good as crazy.

“I’m not feeding him off ration packs! I’m….” But she never got to finish. All Vole heard - all Vole would ever hear - was that she was bucking his authority. He slapped her across the face, hard. She put her hands up to defend herself but he’d grabbed a piece of wood that was lying across the railings and smacked it across her forearms. She felt a sickly crunch and a stab of pain.

As she stood doubled over, clutching her injured arm to her aching ribs, Vole pulled a book out of his wide belt pocket. “And this!!! Explain this!!! You’ve been stealing!” He wagged a furious finger in her face. “I’ve seen your quarters. Piles of books!! This is not some sort of circus where you can do what you want. You are making us the laughing stock of the West Wing!”

Seriously? thought Spikey. Was this all a face-saving exercise for Vole in some stupid rivalry with his counterparts at the other end of the Palace?

He dragged her by the wrist so she bared her teeth and hissed with pain, all the way to her quarters, where she was forced to gather up the books, and then into the kitchen, where she had to collect a fresh tray of food. Then down the corridor to the guest wing. Flashing her a nasty look, he knocked on the door of Room 25. What a mess this was going to be, she thought.

Kylo called, “Come in,” and they did. He was sitting by the porch windows in front of a terrarium. They’d interrupted him meditating at it, or using the Force on it in some way. He’d been doing this for the past few days. He had said he was practicing on small creatures but wouldn’t tell Spikey what that meant, exactly. Probably wanting to show off whatever it was once he’d mastered it completely, she had guessed. He hadn’t mentioned the Force-link with Rey again, and she didn’t ask. But judging by his manic energy lately, things were going well in that direction. Poor Rey.

Now he looked up at the surprising intrusion of Vole, and his brows drew together.

“Yes?”

Vole bowed and smiled unctuously. And a little anxiously. Did he have some clue how cock-eyed this was all going to sound, Spikey wondered.

“I’ve come to offer the Palace staff’s most abject apologies. I have just learned that this servant here has been failing the standards we would expect. An egregious breach…We have punished her, but feel free to reinforce the lesson…..She has broken all the rules around the care of our guests, and taken it upon herself….” He gestured to Spikey, who was reshelving as many books as would fit. Spikey would have liked to hear what came next, because whatever it was would have sounded so radically stupid as to be worth hearing. But instead Kylo flicked his hand at the tray Vole was holding, and the lid came off to reveal today’s offerings from the kitchen. Another flick Force-tugged the tray over to him. He gave the contents of the hotbox a slitty-eyed look of dislike, then looked up at Vole. His look of outrage was a sight to behold and for once Spikey was in a position to enjoy it instead of being on the receiving end of it. Vole was getting the whole works —Kylo’s heavy brows were knitted together, the nostrils on that big, arrogant nose were quivering, and his mouth was working as though he couldn’t decide what curse to say first.

Then he simply hurled the whole thing back at Vole, shouting, “I never want to see this muck again! And I want _her_ to keep bringing me the food she’s been bringing me! And she gets to keep the books, you idiot!” He did a double-take, seeing her battered face. “And if you touch her again, I will cut you to pieces!” He Force-slammed Vole against the wall.

Bongo. Nice to see it happen to somebody else, thought Spikey. Vole crawled out on his hands and knees - Kylo appeared to be applying some invisible pressure to him so he couldn’t get up.

“Another stupid scene at the First Order Palace,” she sighed, hiding a smile and getting a cloth to clean up the mess on the floor. “You must think you’re living among crazy people.”

Kylo just made a sound of frustration. “He’s not the poisoner though. I just checked,” he said,  
then turned at her hiss of pain. Spikey was finding it painful to bend over and she couldn’t use her right hand. “He hurt my wrist.”

Kylo gestured her to stand up and come to him. Taking her right hand, he closed his other hand around her wrist. He had a look of concentration on his face. “This is fractured. But I may have learned something that could fix it,” he said. He worked his hand gently along the bones of her wrist, probing and stroking them. It hurt, but a numb, burning sensation started to overcome the pain of the broken bone. His hands seemed warmer than humanly possible. His normally white face was flushed with effort.

A little time passed, and then he let her arm go. “How does that feel?”

Spikey prodded the wrist and flexed her fingers. “It’s good! I can’t feel a break! It’s still bruised, but I can use the hand.” She looked at him, amazed. “If you can do that, why didn’t you heal up those wounds you had?”

“I didn’t know how then. This is something I’m learning right now.” He took her hand again and raised her arm, feeling along the healed bones. He had such a look of simple pleasure that it was obvious the new skill delighted him. “Hmm. Not too bad for a first try.”

“Is that what you were doing with the terrarium?”

“Yes. Finding a way to feel living things with the Force in a different way. Feeling their cells, the way their life energy flows.”

“Wow. They were just lizards and insects and plants and stuff though. How did you know you could do this?”

“I didn’t. I thought it was worth a try though.” He smiled down at her, and she felt like she was seeing a completely different person. She smiled back. It hurt, with the weals Vole had put on her face.

Kylo saw that, and suddenly his hand was on her cheek. “Let’s see if I can fix this up a bit.” Again, that unnatural heat from his hand. He had his eyes shut this time, concentrating. Spikey watched his face a little nervously. His eyelashes were very long and fluttered slightly, and his mouth moved as though saying something. This was too close, she thought. Their professional intimacy when she helped him bathe and dress was weird enough already. She had shaken him awake out of nightmares. They also shared a strange compulsion to argue, and they’d been face to face in anger more than once. But this….Kylo opened his eyes and smiled down at her, and she smiled back.

“Anywhere else?” he asked.

_Do not say ribs!!!_ flashed into her mind in red, strobing capital letters.

“Ribs.” She tried to step away. “It’s nothing though, I’m sure they’ll….” But he already had his hand under her shirt, sliding up to feel the exact spot.

“Right here, is it?” he asked, smiling again. “Another break, I think.” Spikey nodded, feeling a shudder run through her. Fear or pleasure or both, she couldn’t tell. She couldn’t trust herself to speak, and stood silent as he kneaded gently over the hurt, and the tingling heat flushed through her ribs. She could feel them knitting together. So strange. Then the pain was gone.

“Thank you,” she said faintly.

“Oh, I think you know how you can thank me,” he said, and one long thumb stretched up to trace across her nipple. He bowed his head towards hers, smiling invitingly.

“Ah, I thought Force users were meant to be celibate or something?” She knew that wasn’t true of course, but couldn’t think of anything else.

“No, you’re thinking Jedi,” he said absently, and one finger was tracing the line of her cheekbone. “The Sith….”

He broke off, and Spikey saw a look come into his eyes, like shutters drawing across, wiping out any trace of warmth. In an instant his face became stony and chalk-white. “The Sith…take what they want,” he said coldly. The hand under her shirt was suddenly grabbing her breast, squeezing it roughly. He leaned down and gave her two hard, biting kisses. Then he slapped her hard across the face and flung her away.

Spikey rolled to her feet, gave him a scalding look of shock. He was staring at her with an utterly mad look, pure hatred, with the whites of his eyes showing all around.

“You think I don’t know what you’re doing?” he spat furiously. “All sweetness and light, suddenly. Do you think that counts for anything with me?” He stepped towards her, menacing her. “You think I’m your ticket out of here! Kitchen rat! What have you got to offer that Lissa and the girls don’t do better?” His voice became mocking, cruel. “Oh, I forgot. You’re my little admirer. You’re so _devoted!_ So _cute!”_ His voice was poisonous with scorn. “I’m supposed to go all soft for you, is that how it goes?”

Spikey bounded out the door before he could say anything else. She took the corridors back to her room at a flat-out sprint, heart pounding with fury and shame. Tears of humiliation stung her eyes. What had just happened there? What the hell was going on?

And she still had to cook for him. She vented her fury on her chopping board, slicing vegetables into tiny pieces, stopping to dash tears out of her eyes. That evil bastard, he’d lured her in with smiles and then turned into a psycho shit all of a sudden! What was that all about? What sort of idiot was she, for going anywhere near that hot mess? Never again.

And with a feeling of sick horror, she realised she’d failed to plan out her long game. Vole would never forgive her for having seen his humiliation, and would be plotting revenge forever after. As for Kylo, whatever vague hope she had of leveraging his support to get out of this place, well she’d lost any chance of making _that_ into a plan. He’d gone from being her protector and knight in shining armour to a sadistic freak. She’d seen that happen in relationships before, but it usually took months rather than minutes. Catastrophe. 

* * *

 

After Spikey had gone, Kylo stood a moment, shaken. What the hell was that all about, he wondered. Here in the heart of the First Order, in Snoke’s very heartland, how could he be wasting time imagining _that?_ With _her?_ Not only today, either, but today’s incident had made it clear to him how badly he was off course. How he craved that sweetness.

Lust, pride, and violence all fed the Dark side. Sweet kisses did not. He was so pathetic, he made himself sick. Why couldn’t the Dark just rule his actions so he could do its bidding by instinct, and take what was to be taken? Why couldn’t he always give himself up to that? He wanted the Force like a torrent of righteousness ruling him. She was so weak, grovelling on the floor. She’d reduce him to that, with her softness. He’d never feel Snoke’s approval again if he knew Kylo was tempted like this. Today he’d done the right thing, and only just in time.

Kylo sat down heavily on the end of the bed. He picked up Vader’s helmet and stared into the empty eye sockets. Damn it, help me, he thought. The Light still gets in. What more can I do? Make me strong, he pleaded. And what of Rey? Is she what Padme was to you, Grandfather? An obsession, a weakness! A fated match, or a mistake? He was only here because of Vader’s mistake, if that’s what it was. Alive, and cursed, he thought.

Spikey came back eventually to dump a tray of food on the table, silently shooting him a snake-eyed look before leaving. Bitch. She’d made it clear so often that she didn’t like clients touching her, but she’d wanted it today, the liar. Snoke had told him often enough how weak people would try to use him, would lie. Kylo had been merciful, considering. It was lucky for Spikey she was so useful.

 


	24. Parties at Hux's

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Meanwhile, on the other side of the First Order Palace.....
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Spikey was on fire for the next week, running everywhere, doing everything she normally did in double-quick time, and stopping nowhere to speak to anyone. She cooked and cleaned in a fury, feeling it now as a burning yoke around her neck: she’d invented all this extra work for herself serving Kylo, and now she hated him and would never see any benefit from it.

He didn’t want her around either so at least she had evenings free to practice the chitarra. There were some bitter songs of heartbreak and disappointment that came to mind, and she tried them out in her new voice that was so scratchy and rough from disuse, and yet so potent beneath it all. When she was ready to face people again, she took to hanging out in the comfort girls’ common room. They didn’t ask questions. They didn’t need to: misjudging a client’s goodwill was a regular problem for them too, and they knew the signs. But they did ask for more songs, and shared the ones they knew.

One evening as she came up, Lissa, Andala and four or five others were preparing to leave in a troupe. They grabbed Spikey’s arm with evident delight.

“Spikey! Just who we wanted to see! We have to entertain at an officer’s party in the West Wing tonight, but Lissa’s mashed her fingers and can’t play. Could you do the chitarra? Are you free for the rest of the evening?” asked Andala.

Spikey held up her wrist, which was free of a call bracelet. Cosy evenings with Kylo were not on her schedule any more. She stifled a sudden uneasy thought: Kylo suspected his assassin of being linked to his military colleagues. Not that she had any loyalty to him now, but being caught up anywhere in their enmity could be unhealthy. Well, so why would he even know? She forced a smile at the girls and agreed to come. Lissa put her own glorious red-and-gold chitarra in Spikey’s hands, and she forgot all her misgivings.

Andala nipped back to the common room to fetch a gauzy turquoise wrap and a necklace to put on Spikey so she wouldn’t look completely out of place in their company, but of course she did. The others were all extremely beautiful, and dressed like dreams. Andala settled the wrap onto Spikey in some graceful way, cocked her head on one side and said, “You look….”

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want to look like anything. I just want to play music and not be looked at.”

“You can slip away when the music-making part of the evening is over. I’ll make sure you get out the door,” said Lissa, understanding.

They all clattered along the corridors in their extravagant shoes, and Spikey pattered along with them. Many turns and stairs later they arrived at a large set of apartments in the West Wing. A baritone roar of good cheer filtered out the door, intensifying as they walked in. Spikey walked head-down in a haze of nerves, fearing the crowd and the noise and the aggressive masculine energy that peaked as the girls arrived. Without being too obvious, Lissa guided her to the corner where they were to perform, despite all the good-natured attempts to drag her away. Spikey curled herself into a chair and started to tune the chitarra, ignoring everyone until they had forgotten her and she was ready to look up.

Hux was holding court by the drinks table. Though “holding court” did not quite describe it. He didn’t need to raise his voice; men clustered around him and regaled him with their stories, and vied with each other in laughter. He was coolly in control of proceedings: a still centre around which the others revolved. His smile was thin, his eyes alert, considering.

He moved over so he was quite nearby, though his rigidly-straight back was towards her. She could see the deferential faces of the people talking to him and hear something of his replies, which were often preceded by long unnerving pauses. Spikey couldn’t imagine ever making him laugh. A little stab of obscure pride came to her heart at that: she’d made Kylo Ren laugh, and that was something nobody would believe.

It was time to play. The girls had finished meeting and greeting. They drifted over to Spikey’s corner. It turned out that they’d done enough singing and playing together informally to make their performance easy, from Spikey’s point of view. She knew many of the same songs as them. Every now and then, with the songs she knew well, she stripped back her accompaniment to allow her to concentrate on singing a harmony part, lifting up the other girls’ voices with her strength. She caught brief glances of appreciation when she did this, or when she filled in a few moments between verses with a little intricate finger-work. Then the girls were set to dance, and all Spikey had to do was improvise something to which they could move. They were even more beautiful in motion, and Spikey’s playing became ever more inspired by their grace and expressiveness. She forgot her fingers and let the music pour out as if coming from some place else.

Then the music was over and it was mix and mingle time. Lissa steered Spikey for the door, deflecting the attention of the men with a deftness born of long skill. One or two sets of eyes followed Spikey’s progress through the crowd, holding the chitarra protectively against her body. But Lissa somehow drew an invisible line around her, though she could not have said how. A line that said, “this is the chitarra player, and she is not part of the rest of the evening’s entertainment”.

Released from company, Spikey almost skipped back to the East Wing, where she returned the chitarra to its home and went back to her own quarters on a cloud of happiness. She hoped they would invite her again.

 


	25. Second and Third Contact with Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> With practice, Kylo makes the Force connection more easily. 
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

“You’ve linked with Rey.” Sara Rem Nata, back from some time away, knew it as soon as they sat down for their morning exercises.

“I’ve linked with Rey, yes,” said Kylo. He had been about to tell her.

“I will let Snoke know,” she said, showing her teeth in a sharp, triumphant grin.

“No, _I_ will let Snoke know.” This time he stared her down. _I am the protege, not you._ He’d find out why Sara Rem Nata thought she had a quicker line to Snoke than he did, too. Snoke had not responded to Kylo’s request for a meeting. He was fairly sure he could keep these thoughts hidden from Sara Rem Nata; now that he had more skill infiltrating other minds, he was more aware when she did it to him. And so, he was better able to protect himself. He could see why she hadn’t been keen to teach him that.

“Let’s look for _where_ she is!” he said. “Otherwise we’re just going to trade empty threats across the Galaxy.”

Sara Rem Nata started him on a new course of exercises; a subtle act of orientation with the physical Galaxy. The Force had its own view of the Galaxy, in as much as it could be said to have a view. Putting it in synchrony with the known things of the physical world was a difficult art. The knowledge of living things he’d gained through his terrarium exercises was one step towards it, in ways that were difficult to define. They were the bridge between the inanimate world of stars and gas clouds, and the incorporeal world of the Force. Like his mastery of healing which he had practiced on Spikey, this new skill gave him pleasure. There was no conflict in it: there was enjoyment in seeing how things could come into alignment.

Soon enough, a message droid came with a summons to the Throne Room. Kylo smiled to himself and called in Spikey. For this meeting he wanted his most elaborate uniform, and he could not be bothered with the laces and buckles himself.

Spikey came in, as she did lately, with no eye contact, moving in a smoothly efficient way that betrayed no personality at all. Nothing of the jaunty excess that caused her to knock things over. He had destroyed her.

His meeting with Snoke was short and left him with a flat feeling. Perhaps it was the result of knowing that part of the Throne Room’s awe-inspiring effect was a mere trick of sub-aural frequencies and careful lighting. Nothing to do with Snoke, who was still his guide and inspiration, even if he was so rarely in contact lately.

Snoke was of course pleased that he was in touch with Rey. Kylo requested more time to meditate in search of her, and less time doing martial arts with Hestar Litt. Snoke agreed. And that was that. Kylo returned to his quarters, squashing a desire for more of Snoke’s attention.

* * *

 

And there was Rey again, the very next afternoon. She seemed to be looking down from a height. It was a sunny day and the blue sea stretched out in a wide expanse from the base of the island far below. The Millennium Falcon was a grey shadow parked by the margin of the ocean. His reaction to it gave him away to her, again.

_You again!_

_Yes, me. Nice day._

_Get out of my head!_

_You’re in my head too, so don’t blame me for all of this._  He felt a jab of annoyance from Rey, and changed the subject before she could shy away and break contact. _You don’t like it when it rains, do you? Or the sea, when it’s rough. It looks like a very nice island today though. Where are you, Rey?_

 _Get lost! I’m not telling you anything._ And indeed, she seemed to have put a shiny wall around the name of her location: he could see where the name was, in her mind, but he couldn’t see it. Clever.

 _Why are we linked like this?_ Rey asked.

_You have a teacher, why don’t you ask him? How is Luke, by the way?_

_He’s fine, and why would you care? He told me how you tried to kill him!_

_I wouldn’t try to kill you though. I have other orders for you._

_Orders from Snoke. Luke’s told me about Snoke. You are despicable, all of you._

_I doubt Luke knows all that much about Snoke. You’d be surprised what he could offer you. He knows a lot._

_A lot about what? How to kill the people who love you?_

That burned. A stab in the gut to Kylo. No more than he deserved. He shook it off. He could stand that pain, he could stand any pain, when he was succeeding like this, just as Snoke had hoped. That was why the Dark side was so strong. She was still weeping about Han’s death, and she’d barely known him. Still, her little jibe made him angry.

 _And yet you still seem to know so little. Luke hasn’t even told you about the Force link,_ Kylo guessed. He could feel her indecision - she wanted to know, but not from him.

_YOU’RE not the teacher I want. Your offer was … disgusting._

_But you want to know…and I will tell you. Twice we’ve been through pain together. We’ve fought. We used the Force on each other and we’ve been in each other’s minds. Sometimes such experiences forge a link. Especially if you haven’t got the detachment of a Jedi to hold yourself back._ This was as much as Kylo had learned from Snoke, and he repeated it now to Rey.

 _I will BE a Jedi!_ she responded furiously.

_Too late. The link was made, in our conflict with each other._

There was a pause, and then Rey offered an uncertain thought: _Three times. We have been together three times. There was fighting the other time too._

Her mind flashed on a picture. Dream, vision, memory. He had already seen it: the firelit terror of the time the Knights of Ren attacked Luke’s Jedi school. _You were there! And so was I!_

_I know the answers to your questions. We will meet again, Rey. You know it and I know it._

_I look forward to the day._ Steel and fire in her thoughts. She was a swordswoman through and through.

_Strange that you are angry, and I am calm._

With that thought he left her, standing up suddenly and returning to the physical world with a quick kata-dance around the room, swinging an imaginary light sabre. He felt particularly proud of his parting shot. For he’d decided, after talking to Snoke, that he should make her doubt that the Dark had no hold on her.

Afterwards, one thing troubled him and he sought an audience with Snoke, who proved to be available the next day.

“The exercises I do with Sara Rem Nata —won’t Rey be doing similar exercises to find me? If she finds me first, it puts not only me in danger, but the First Order Palace as well.”

“The planet of the First Order’s Palace is hidden in more ways than one. Nobody on it knows where it is or what it is called, including you, so you can’t reveal that secret. It is hidden physically in a dust-cloud, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, and it is also hidden in a dead zone that is very difficult for Force vision to find. Like a one-way mirror, it’s easier to look out than to see in. I went to some trouble to find such a planet.”

Kylo thought about it as he went back to his quarters. When the First Order finished off the New Republic, it would be strange to have a seat of government that was entirely invisible, he thought. But useful. He thought over whether Snoke had given him any clues on whether his physical location was here or somewhere else, a subject that often consumed him.

Kylo made a detour to the Palace workshops. The new helmet was nearly ready. The thought of putting it back on seemed less appealing to him now. It seemed a bit pointless, since everyone had seen his face round here already. He also didn’t feel like he was losing his dignity in front of people as much. Maybe he’d never keep his feelings completely hidden, but he hadn’t made a complete fool of himself lately. People still feared him.

He’d brought in the remains of his lightsaber a few weeks back and the kyber crystal had been sitting in a mineral solution in the hopes of strengthening it. It didn’t really seem any worse than before, though Rey’s treatment of the lightsaber had blown all the circuits. He could build another one around it. It would make for a relaxing few days’ work away from Sara Rem Nata and Hestar Litt.

* * *

Rebuilding the lightsaber was calm, focused work. Kylo was not entirely surprised when he made the Force-link to Rey again. He was bent over a worktable aligning the kyber crystal to the circuits when he felt something in his mind give, like a wall becoming soft. It was less of a shock to link this time, and Rey did not instantly attack him when she sensed his presence. He began to see that Rey was normally a person who preferred to bide in silence, thinking things over before replying, or saying nothing if nothing needed to be said. She was decisive and impressively quick at need, both physically and mentally. But he should not mistake that for impulsiveness.

They circled each other warily, mentally observing each other. He couldn’t see her because he was inside her mind. She was looking at a rough stone wall. Where? She wouldn’t let him find out.

No words. Her physical environment was grey and dull and wet, but she herself was filled with a lifetime of sunlight and silence and vast, windy open spaces, the beauty of sunrises and sunsets outlining the delicate shapes of the dunes, the love of heights and speed and flying. The loneliness had another side: freedom.

 _I saw your landspeeder. Did you make it yourself?_ he asked. _It looked fast._

She seemed to weigh the question, consider whether there was harm in it. She had a soft spot for that landspeeder. _Yes._

 _I love flying too,_ he offered.

She regarded him for a moment. _In battle,_ she said. _When you’re shooting at things._

 _That’s not true!_ he said. _Besides, you are a war pilot too. You’re a natural. We’ve recovered footage from the tie-fighters that chased you on Jakku. That was amazing flying._

 _Are you trying to be friends with me now?_ she said coldly. He could see into her mind for an instant: a sharp line divided friends and not-friends. That was her first line of judgement, taking precedence over whether people were useful and not-useful.

As he looked into her, she looked equally into him. S _o to you, people are only useful or not-useful_ , she stated. _And you called ME lonely!_

_Rey, we are the only two people in the Galaxy that have the Force in the way that we do. We are going to meet sooner or later. It is our destiny. So we may as well talk._

A weighty silence from Rey. Her thoughts shifted like a mosaic of glass tiles clicking swiftly into place, making a new shape. A sensation he recognised, because his own mind worked like that, when it was working well.

Rey had so much to learn, and she learned it so quickly. Right now she was thinking of destiny, obligation and free will. Large ideas that people study in books for years. She was already defining the shape of them with the bright clarity that was such a feature of her thought.

 _I don’t believe in destiny,_ she replied at last. _Darth Vader thought it was Luke’s destiny to rule the Galaxy beside him. He was wrong. Why are you repeating the same talk of destiny thirty years later? I will make my own destiny, just as Luke did._

The link between them broke apart, whether from his doing or hers, it was hard to tell. Kylo found himself staring at the workbench, where he’d unconsciously used one of his tools to doodle a sketch of Rey on her landspeeder. The very image of freedom. He stood up suddenly and ignited the lightsaber. Its plasma energy snaked around everywhere, uncontrollable. He slashed at the picture until it was unrecognisable, then pulled the lightsaber to pieces. It was no good like this.

And yet.

As he fell asleep that night he imagined riding the desert with her on that machine. His arm around her waist, her head tucked under his chin, the dry, cool night air blowing in their faces. The stars above, her warmth against his chest. It felt unbearably good. He didn’t have the strength to turn aside from the pleasure of thinking about it. Not even with Vader’s helmet staring down at him through his darkened room.

 

 

 

 


	26. Serious Partying at Hux's.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Parties are where the deals are made and plans are laid. Kylo's not invited. Spikey is merely a witness, and doesn't see or understand the half of it.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

“Remember we were stuck in that Resinik village for a ten-day while Lieutenant Kring was negotiating with the headman for guides and portage, and they had those awful beasts, what were they?”

Another party at Hux’s. A new unit had come in and was sharing good times with their friends in Hux’s unit. Spikey was quite amused, and listened avidly, keeping up no more than a soft strum of sound to accompany their stories.

“Korgolds. With the tentacle-heads.”

“They were foul-smelling things! Bloody over-running the place. I don’t know how people can live that way, even if they are aliens!”

“Yeah, well Torman got bored and very drunk one night, and stuck a signal flare up one of the korgolds’ backsides. Only it didn’t go off at once, and the damn thing was raging around the village setting off these AWFUL farts, and wouldn’t you know, it was the headman’s prize breeding specimen….anyway just as Kring was about to shake hands on the deal, there goes his beloved stud beast, right through the middle of the banquet hall…and then it blew up!”

“There were chunks of it raining down everywhere all over the banquet table….”

The group dissolved in laughter. More stories followed, many of them too esoteric for Spikey to follow.

Sometimes Spikey had trouble believing how quickly her life had changed. A few short months ago she’d been sunk in despair, unable to imagine how she could face her lifetime of slavery in the Palace. Since then she’d survived an almost-relationship with one of the most powerful and dangerous men in the Galaxy, foiled an assassination attempt, and made good friendships among the comfort girls. She’d been reunited with a chitarra and become a fixture at all the best parties, where people were beginning to notice her voice and her playing.

She was almost living two lives, though it helped that she could now use the big kitchens to prepare and store Kylo’s meals, which she did in large batches she could freeze for later. Vole couldn’t say a thing about it. Spikey had neither the time nor the inclination to prepare fresh delicacies for Kylo every meal. Pale and distant, he seemed too obsessed with his search for Rey to care.

It seemed as though years of boredom and depression had given her a store of pent-up energy so she could work all day and play all night, snatching sleep in the early mornings and early afternoons. It was thrilling and deeply satisfying.

Spikey made no attempt to draw attention to herself at the parties where she performed. She barely looked at anyone except her colleagues. Lissa was glad to be freed from having to play the chitarra, for she didn’t like to play and sing at the same time, and she was a more natural dancer than either of those things. And so things went on for a while, with Spikey losing her fear of the brash, competitive officers with their tall tales and loud laughter.

“Remember that time Torman reversed the Merck filters? And we’d just left Skax….”

“Gungan gods! We couldn’t use that half of the ship for weeks!”

Well, these people had no need for further entertainment from her, Spikey thought. Hux was keeping cool as usual, smoking some sort of mildly narcotic thing from an elaborate jewelled hookah. He wasn’t sharing. Lissa and the girls had finished singing and were making their assignations for the night. Everyone looked happy enough, so Spikey quietly slung the chitarra over her shoulder and made her way out.

A minute later she was surprised by an older man with silver hair and a neatly-trimmed moustache who had followed her out the door.

“Musician. Yes, you — what’s your name?”

“Spikey.”

“Hux is holding a smaller party tomorrow and we want some entertainment for it. It’s a family party, so we don’t want the whole troupe. Just you.”

“Ah…..I’ll see if I can. I’m not officially part of the entertainment crew. I’m actually just a room servant. I’d have to get permission.” Not from Kylo, who wouldn’t even know, but from Lissa, Spikey thought. The last thing she wanted to do was to poach on Lissa’s territory.

“You play very well. I’ve heard many chitarra players. You’re good.”

“I worked hard at it, once upon a time. Now I’m glad to have an audience. I will try to get permission — can you arrange it through Lissa?”

The man nodded his head courteously and Spikey continued on towards her quarters. She felt happy. She knew when a person had really heard her.

 

* * *

 

With the loan of the chitarra, Spikey felt she owed Lissa more than she could ever repay. As soon as she could, she took a tray of freshly-baked biscuits up to the Comfort Girls’ common room.

“Lissa, after that last gathering at Hux’s, this old gentleman asked me to play at a smaller family party tomorrow. But I don’t want to move in on your thing. I can turn it down, if you prefer?”

“I’m paid the same amount of nothing whether I play or not. You enjoy playing. You should do it,” said Lissa.

“Okay!” said Spikey happily.

Andala called over from the balcony, “Speaking of Hux, come here and have a look at this!”

Lissa and Spikey went over to the balustrade. The girls’ balcony had a wide view of the formal and kitchen gardens. General Hux was visible walking slowly with his clipped stride down one of the topiary walks.

“What’s he got?” asked Spikey.

“Ceremonial sword, I think,” said Andala. She was sniggering. Every now and then Hux would stop to slash pettishly at the hedges, apparently tidying up some unevenness in the topiary. From his posture, they could all imagine the offended look on his face. “Isn’t that typical Hux? Everything has to be perfect.”

Oh, and look!” She pointed to the another part of the gardens. Kylo had exploded into view, slashing wildly at the trees and statues with his lightsaber and making furious arcs of fire with it.

“Looks like he’s got a new lightsaber. Bully-oh for him,” said Spikey morosely.

“Ha, but look at the two of them. That’s hilarious. Hux is all…..” Andala mimed Hux snipping away fussily at the bushes … “and Kylo’s going all mental…” She launched a windmilling attack on a potted shrub on the balcony. “I hope they don’t meet up!”

“I hope they do. It’d be so fucking funny I’d cry.”

The girls started to laugh. The two men walked towards each other, hidden from each other by walls and lines of shrubbery. Spikey was wiping away tears of laughter by the time they passed each other, still unaware of each other’s proximity.

“I don’t know who’s the bigger idiot,” she said.

Lissa stopped laughing. “Or which one is more dangerous. Don’t get caught between them.”

* * *

 

  
Kylo was served an early dinner and then Spikey was off to the West Wing, trailing the turquoise wrap Andala had lent her. Hux’s party was not in the large foyer where he usually entertained, but in a more private inner room. Four or five people were there already including Hux, who nodded coldly, and the silver-haired gentleman, who ushered Spikey to a corner where she was to play. She consulted with him briefly about what was required. Apparently some of the Huxes and their friends appreciated a bit of culture and heritage, so old classic lays and settings of Empire poets would be appropriate, he suggested. Spikey had a lot of those collected onto a pad for convenience; she set them up and started playing quietly.

A younger, less dramatic-looking version of General Hux started to hover around to listen. He had sand-coloured hair and a softer copy of Hux’s features. Spikey guessed he was a younger brother. He was in uniform too, but nothing as high-ranked as Hux. They made eye contact briefly, and Spikey started showing off slightly, partly for the look of appreciation in younger-Hux’s eyes, and partly because it forced her to concentrate harder and made it easier to block out the rest of the group.

And they were pretty dire, as families go. Hux’s mother arrived amid a great scraping of chairs. People rose to cluster around her, a small, haughty-looking woman wearing her silver hair woven into a crown of jewels. The younger Hux hurried forward offering to take her extravagant feather shawl and hang it somewhere. She gave him a tinkling false laugh and said nastily that she wasn’t so decrepit as to require his help yet. The younger Hux flushed with shame and General Hux shot them both a look of contempt before coming forward with an oily greeting for her. There was some double-entendre that Spikey didn’t get, but it brought two spots of colour to the woman’s chalk-white cheekbones. She really was a living skull, Spikey thought. Dieted to skin and bone, and subsisting on sheer spite, from the look of it. The next time the younger Hux looked at Spikey, she sketched him an improvisation around The Red Lady of Mr’tesk, a famous tale of a ruthless matriarch with a penchant for slaughter. He must have caught the reference, because he did a double-take followed by a slight smile. Spikey grinned quickly at him and bent her head to the frets again. An ally. Risky, but she had figured nobody else was listening.

“I’ve seen you play before with the group, but I never caught your name.” The sandy-haired Hux, moving in closer.

“Spikey.”

“I might get you over for one of my own parties. We’re not all boors here. Some people like good music. Can you sing? I’ve only heard you sing harmony.”

“I can try.” Then Spikey explained that her time wasn’t entirely free; she was a room servant for the East Wing and usually had duties during the day; it wasn’t always possible to predict when she’d finish. She managed to give the impression that her role in the East Wing was more of a general one. She had a well-founded suspicion that it would not be a good idea to let any of the Huxes know who her specific assignment was. She needed time to figure out if she could be re-assigned here without going through Vole.

 

 

 


	27. Rapprochement

Kylo had the whirling dream again. It had developed a new refinement of horror. In the dream, he found his mother in the spinning chaos. They clung to each other. She wept and thanked him over and over for finding her. “I’ve waited so long. How you’ve grown! Hold me, I don’t want to lose you again,” she said over the shriek of the wind. “Help me find your father. Do you know where he is?” She looked at him, and then somehow she knew what he’d done.

He awoke with a gasp, feeling the burn in the middle of his chest. As though it was he who had been stabbed. He wanted to vomit. He dug his nails into his chest and drew his hands across hard enough to draw blood, then stopped himself with an effort. Sleep was impossible. He dressed quickly, took his lightsaber and went down the silent midnight corridors of the Palace to the little arena. He worked through the forms he was studying until he was sweating, and then called up one of the holographic sparring partners. They were no real challenge to him, but he fought them anyway, his lightsaber making sizzling arcs as he slashed and parried. It took over an hour to tire of his uncountable enemies. Shaking slightly with tiredness, he headed back to his rooms.

He wasn’t wearing his boots, preferring to slip through the halls of the Palace like a shadow instead of having his boot-heels pound out news of his presence. He was a thing of night. One day maybe all this would be his, he thought. If Snoke was telling the truth. All these empty rooms, his. He sheathed his lightsaber.

Somebody else was up. The sound of light feet slapped the marble in a cross corridor ahead of him. To his surprise he ran across Spikey, heading back to the servant quarters. She had a long red thing slung across her back. Some kind of carved wood. An instrument. She gave a wary nod and sped up her pace to get away.

“What.” 

“Nothing.” She kept going.

“Stop. What are you doing?” He stepped forward to where she’d stopped, and reached into her mind briefly to see what he could read in there. She was looking at the hilt of his lightsaber, and her entire mind was one blinding scream that said _NO NOT THE CHITARRA, DON’T TOUCH THE CHITARRA, HE’S GOING TO DESTROY IT OH NO!!!_

“Is this the chitarra? he asked, reaching out a finger to the long stem of the thing that reared up over her back. It was carved like the head of some strange beast with golden eyes. Spikey shuffled out of reach, more alarmed than ever. “Is this something you do? Like the poetry?”

“I was just returning it to the comfort girls,” she said, avoiding his question. But he could see the answer in her mind. Yes she did play, and it meant more to her than anything. She grimaced, knowing he knew. He could have told her he knew anyway because the sound of her endless practicing had drifted about the Palace for weeks from whatever hidden corner she’d found for the purpose. 

On impulse, he said, “Play it for me. Not here. Follow me.” He turned and led her outside to where a couple of stone benches framed a pond in one of the walled gardens nearby. Two moons were up, making a diffuse silver light. Spikey sat opposite him, unhooking the big instrument and laying it across her lap. She didn’t look at him, but after a pause she started on something slow and simple. Each note was like a clear drop of water in the desert. So sweet. After a while she brought in a second strand of notes that imitated the first, but higher and offset so the melodies chased each other, full of surprising harmonies and oppositions. That slight mental hum she always had flared up into something fuller. Not the Force. Something else. Whatever it was, its power ran through her fingers as she played. She concentrated on it, ignoring him completely.

Suddenly he realised he had missed his little storyteller. A few weeks ago they’d sat outside like this while she read to him. Did he really need to separate himself from all the comforts of life, he wondered. If Snoke was right, he was given over to the Dark whether he amused himself with people or not. Temporary pleasures. He was closing in on Rey, whatever else he did. Maybe success didn’t depend on what he did the rest of the time. He stood up abruptly. 

“Good night,” said Spikey. But instead he went to sit next to her, putting a hand on the back of her neck, leaning over to watch her hands. 

“I can’t play if you sit there.”

“Then stop.”

She stopped instantly and leaned away to put the chitarra down on the ground as far away from him as she could reach. He saw that she was still terrified he would do something to it.

“We have unfinished business, you and I.”

“We’ll have to agree to disagree about that,” she said.

“No. Look at me.” He took her chin and tilted her head up so she had to look. 

“You hurt me and mocked me. I am finished with that business,” she said.

“I’m not going to bite you.”

“Great,” she said savagely. “I feel better already. What about in five minutes’ time, or tomorrow? Who the hell knows what you’re going to do, or why?”

“Come on. Kiss me.”

She jerked her chin out of his grip with a scowl, lips pulled back to show clenched teeth. Then she leaned in quickly and gave him the most chaste kiss imaginable. A peck on the cheek.

“That’s how you’d kiss your aunt,” he said.

“No, that’s how you’d kiss a weird uncle who smells funny,” she quipped, suddenly returning to form. He felt his cheeks crack into the start of a smile. Smiling hurt. He hadn’t done it in so long.

“If this is supposed to be some sort of kiss-and-make-up session, then please stop. This isn’t how it’s done,” she continued. 

“You show me how it’s done.”

“What happens is you apologise for hurting me and explain how it was all a terrible mistake.”

He laughed softly, shaking his head. “Don’t let your imagination run away with you. That is never going to happen, and you know it.”

She snorted and shook her head. 

She was right, he thought. Kissing her here and now wouldn’t work. He pulled her against him and dropped his face to rest his cheek on her hair. They stayed that way until he felt her relax by imperceptible degrees.

“Why did you do it, anyway? Why suddenly hating me like that?” she asked after a while.

There were a lot of answers he could have given, but he doubted any of them would make sense to her. “I’m not like other people,” he said at last. She sighed, and they sat quietly while the little night insects hummed and trilled softly around them.

Eventually Spikey said, “I really, really need to sleep”.

“That makes two of us. I’ll see you tomorrow.” And with nothing more than that, they both got up and went their separate ways.


	28. Power and Fear: A Brother's Tale

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Power and Fear. This is what the whole Star Wars tragedy is about, isn't it? No matter how much you have, it's never quite enough.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo lay on his bed, flexing his bare feet and stretching his hamstrings. Training with Hestar Litt today hadn’t gone too well. He’d overdone it the night before, sparring with those holographic warriors in the dojo.

Spikey was sitting gracelessly on the floor with all of Kylo’s boots and belts laid out around her for polishing. A dull job, so she talked as she worked.

“Sometimes you remind me of my brother. You know he trained here. And my sister too. That is why my family came here.”

“Really,” said Kylo, considering whether he should be insulted or not. “What was his name?”

"Kahu,” said Spikey.

“I don’t think I met him. What happened to him?”

Spikey hunched her feet up and wrapped her arms around them as though to protect herself.

“He was one of the ones that failed. He went further and further with his training, until he met a challenge he couldn’t master, and he died.”

“The training can be harsh.” Kylo remembered his year in the Black Dojo, where sparring matches were sometimes to the death. A sick thrill of adrenalin came with the memory. A slight shudder. He pushed it aside. It was unnecessary to dwell on it.

“Kahu was older than me, and we had a lot of fun together when I was little. He was smart, and really funny. He made me laugh. But then Snoke’s people came and brought us here, and he changed. He was eager to embrace the Dark Side if it could make him stronger. At first he wanted to be able to protect us. He felt he had to, with our father gone. But it got so I never knew when he might try out some Force technique on me.”

“I noticed that you didn’t seem to panic if I used the Force on you.”

“Well I’ve been Force choked enough. Panicking wastes oxygen. I learned that there’s nothing to do except wait it out and wonder if there’s an afterlife. The person will either let go or not.” She laughed suddenly. “I used to wait a few days and then put spidercreepies in his drawers. He’d have a fit every time. Good times… He couldn’t prove it was me either.

“You know, I think my brother was always afraid. Afraid the Force wouldn’t be enough. He was born with this thing that could give him control over people and things. Yet it was never enough. People still die, friendships fail, things change. But he never learned to accept that. To endure what the world throws at you. To let be what can’t be changed.

“The little people have to learn that courage because there is no other choice. My brother never could, and he became nastier and nastier as his reach grew. The world would always exceed his reach, no matter how powerful he became. He never understood that.”

Her voice was soft and she was not looking at him, staring instead into some invisible distance. Kylo felt a little flutter of fear in his chest. _That_ fear. She had seen it before in her brother, and knew where it lodged in his heart too, as clearly as if there were a window in his chest. He jumped to his feet and walked irritably around the room, ending up staring at Vader’s helmet. Rage was starting to churn up in him. But he forced it down, thinking _this is exactly what she means._ _Being unable to live with fear. Lashing out to deny its existence._ Vader’s helmet didn’t offer any comfort in its shattered stare.

Bitterly he said, “I’d rather you stuck to your job instead of giving me philosophy lectures.”

“Hah, sorry. My uncle was a teacher of philosophy. We saw a lot of him and his friends. Mealtimes were interesting,” said Spikey, warming up to a happier memory. “Those people sure could talk.”

“Must be catching,” said Kylo. She never shut up, did she? On the other hand, he could do with a change of subject. What she’d just said about power and fear were uncomfortable words, and he didn’t want to examine them just now.

“Well just between you and me,” she said, relaxing into a sprawl. She checked the look on his face, and decided to proceed. “I’ve served a lot of people here over the years. And some of them like to hold forth about their plans for the Galaxy and their vision for the future and all of that. Like, they’d probably talk to themselves or their pets if I wasn’t there but hey, I’m a captive audience, hah hah!

“So they like to _explain_ themselves to me, like I was their conscience. Such as it is. And in every case I have walked out thinking ‘Do not _ever_ engage me in an argument about ethics, because if you do you’ll be coming to a knife fight armed with a spoon.’”

Kylo snorted, amused at the image. “So, do you hold your tongue?”

“Not always.” She made a gesture like something passing over her head. “Whoosh. Most of them don’t even get what I’ve said. It’s not like they’re used to listening to other people, is it?”

She pulled one of her faces and Kylo laughed. She had a knack of making things seem funny. Some mysterious blend of timing, expression and her own conviction that things amused her, so they should amuse others.

Kylo found himself saying,“You remind me of my mother!”

Spikey started laughing herself. “I don’t know how I’m supposed to take that!”

Kylo himself wasn’t sure where he was going with that idea either. It had simply fallen out of his mouth as though from nowhere. He thought for a moment, puzzled. “She was funny. And she had really big moods. If she was happy, it burst out of her all over and everyone was glad. Or if she was sad, it’d fill the room. And if she was angry, watch out! She had a tongue like a razor blade when she was mad.”

Kylo realised his hands were shaking, and he gripped them one in the other to make them stop. He didn’t know he could talk about his mother. Now he had, and the pain was apparently survivable.

“Your tongue were any sharper, you’d cut your own mouth,” said Spikey, not noticing his discomfort. “That’s what my sister used to say to me.”

“What happened to her?”

Spikey took a quick breath, suddenly frowning. “She…..was doing very well with her training. Extremely well. About a year after our brother died, she took her own life. I’ve never known why.” Her voice had become very small.

“And that left just you,” said Kylo after a short silence.

“Well, my mum too. She was ill by then. Had been for a long time. We couldn’t get much treatment. She died a few months later.”

There were tears in her eyes. But then Kylo saw her dig in deep and find something else to say.

“I think she died believing I was going to be okay, that at least I would live. And that was a comfort to her.” She smiled ruefully. “Hey, I get to live in a palace! Even if it’s not my palace!”

Endurance. Making the best of what cannot be changed, thought Kylo. Because there was very little about Spikey’s life that was okay, as far as he could see.

She stood up and arranged the belts and boots in their closet. “If you don’t need me for anything, I’ll go.”

“Good night.”

_Who's the girl?_

What? How long had Rey been in his head? _My servant,_ he thought.

An uncertain silence. Then, _Of course. You have servants._ Cold.

 _Bye, Rey._ He kicked her out. He was too tired for this right now.

 

 

 

 


	29. Loose ends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hux is so insufferably smug, trotting around doing Snoke's work for him. What has Kylo got to show for his time?
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The twice-weekly briefings were unquestionably a low point of Kylo Ren’s life in the First Order Palace. General Hux, when he was there, was busy, busy, busy and made sure to rub it in. Since the destruction of Starkiller Base, there were a lot of redeployments to be made with the troops that had managed to escape, and the Finalizer was out on frequent shake-down missions. Meanwhile Kylo’s plans to have his own command shuttle be fitted with hyperdrive were stalled by a welter of marginally-plausible excuses. It was infuriating. If he had his own hyperdrive ship he wouldn’t have to rely on Hux’s Finalizer to taxi him around the Galaxy. He kept reminding Hux of this.

“And how is your search for the girl going?” Hux would say, after they’d all listened to somebody drone on about shortages or new equipment or the revised crewing arrangements on the Finalizer’s daughter ships. Hux always made it sound like it Kylo’s task was something personal and trivial. Looking for a girl. Hardly securing the fate of an empire.

“The Force link is holding, as Supreme Leader Snoke predicted. And so my search for her location is proceeding as he expects,” Kylo would say, trying to project an air of bland certainty. How he wished for his mask! He was afraid his face would give away the truth: that he was blundering around in a fog catching only occasional dim flashes of light. Her light. And she was no doubt looking for him. Occasionally they connected, seemingly more by chance than skill. Generally they traded insults and empty threats. No clues about her location.

“Any news from the Knights of Ren?” asked Hux, steepling his fingers and propping his chin on them.

“There have been a couple of fatalities. They are managing to clear a new base for operations, however.” The less said about them, the better. Snoke had sent them to locate and document previously unknown Sith structures on Moraband, with a view to reinhabiting them. Physical conditions were harsh and the lingering evil of the place was lethal in itself. But Kylo could read between the lines in their reports, which bristled with veiled accusations: the main cause of death was the Knights’ own power struggles. Without Kylo to keep them in check, they were finishing each other off. He suspected Snoke had sent them off for that very reason. Kylo was equally sick of the sight of them and after ten years of sorting out their squabbles, happy to see the back of them. They weren’t the invincibly glorious force he had once dreamed of leading.

Reading between the lines himself, Hux would give him a cold, skeptical smile and move on to more important business.

It didn’t help Kylo’s mood that the Palace seemed overrun with Hux’s extended family and Hux hangers-on. The final straw was when Kylo turned up to the briefing room to find a portrait of General Hux’s father, Brendol Hux, hanging on the wall. Happy families! Kylo had rarely wanted to destroy something so much. Hux sat there smugly, waiting to see if Kylo would throw a tantrum in front of the entire meeting. Kylo restrained himself. Hux would almost certainly sniff at the wreckage and say something like “Oh, it’s just a copy. The original hangs in our banquet hall at home…”

After briefings on the Finalizer, Kylo used to relieve his feelings by prowling the corridors looking for people to terrorise. He could almost guarantee that he’d find some slacker if he searched the corridors and common rooms where the stormtroopers lived. So much for Hux’s army of perfectly-trained soldiers! Eventually the stormtroopers had learned to confine their goofing-off to the safety of their own quarters.

Here in the Palace, Kylo left this latest briefing longing for air and filled with a desire to climb. The highest point in the Palace was also one of the oldest parts, a crumbling stone turret that jutted out of the more modern buildings that surrounded it. The wind was bracing and helped clear the fog of boredom and frustration that filled him.

Who kept decrepit buildings like this standing anyway, as though ancient history mattered? he wondered. Its builders long dead, long forgotten. All that old stonework reeking of history. Would _he_ be history one day, like his grandfather? Would his name last? He ignited his borrowed lightsaber and slashed at the battlements, already much scored by time. Carved his name into the stone, and then felt how childish that was. Even angrier, he obliterated the marks with deeper slashes. _Take that!_

He hated that lightsaber though. It was all he had while the kyber-crystal in his own weapon was floating in its mineral vat, either recovering from the damage that girl had done to it, or not. He missed the wild energy of his own blade. He had always loved the way it seemed to vibrate with untameable potential from the very first, feeding his strength. Not draining it, like this one did.

The view from the turret spanned the plain below the Palace. He could see the shuttle landing pads and a few warehouses. There was a stretch of agricultural land beyond that; stony shapes in the fields suggested that the grass and crops covered the ruins of a long-vanished city. The wider distance was blue and green wilderness: a lost, lovely, hidden planet, nothing on it but the Palace and the things that served it.

So windy up here. He wrapped his cloak close about him and watched the shuttles come and go. How he longed to be out there in space, doing things! Not brooding in this hidden backwater, meditating on the Force. Snoke had said that in order to find that wretched girl, he was to rest, and learn to attune himself to the Force in some new way. Here, in this place, rather than in some Sith temple on a Dark-tormented planet like Moraband. He was not sure if he was meant to enjoy it. Whether he was allowed to enjoy it. Was this a reward or a punishment?

He brooded on the uneasy fact that Snoke was much more involved in politics and diplomacy than he had ever imagined. Kylo’s experience of the Palace was uncomfortably similar to his childhood. He had grown up hearing more about trade negotiations and political manoeuvres than he ever wanted to. How dispiriting to discover now that a good deal of Snoke’s concerns were far removed from the high adventure Kylo had dreamed of. He had always believed that his audiences with Snoke were special and important. An experience he shared at most with Hux alone. Now it was obvious that a whole army of politicians and functionaries must trek in and out of that Throne Room daily. The romance of it was diminished.

Looking back the other way, the Palace was sunk into the plateau behind it, including the walled gardens. Protected from the wind. The walls made a strange, mazy pattern like an enormous hieroglyphic that he could almost read from up here. The servants’ children were visible in the Palace orchards, playing games. Kylo had stalked the outskirts of the Palace before, observing. He saw how the servants joked together, or sang, if they thought they were out of hearing. Some wore little religious charms or set up talismans in forgotten corners. They gathered formally for rites and casually for celebrations. They laughed.

On the Finalizer, people kept their personal lives hidden away. Occasionally there would be some religious observances around a death or the dedication of a new ship, or some such event. Troops might recall some tavern songs from their homeworld, if they’d been allowed to drink. But here it was all out in the open. The lives of small people, Kylo thought to himself.

He worked his way down the winding stairways to arrive at the back kitchen orchards and servant quarters, far from the possibility of running into any Huxes. A snatch of song and a compellingly delicious smell brought him over to the wall of the servant quarters. He was tall enough to look in through a high window, hardly more than an air vent, where the smell was coming from.

He was not entirely surprised to see that these were Spikey’s living quarters. One dingy room. Light came in through an open door to show a bed alcove with a scabby-looking blanket, and some shelves of folded clothes. The chitarra leaned up against a wall. There was a bench covered with ingredients, and a cooker, and that was where she was working. Kylo leaned on the wall to watch in a mild fit of interest to find out where his food came from.

Cooking was clearly some kind of logistical exercise, and she danced between her tasks in a trance of perfect timing - nothing like the clumsy person he was used to seeing in his rooms. He made her nervous, obviously. Now, unaware of him, she handled a knife as deftly as any assassin, reducing ingredients to small cubes or slices before whirling around to flip one of those soft flatbreads she made for him. A quick step back to where she whisked together some other ingredients, just in time to add them to a pan. She turned out a finished flatbread, cast a circle of batter onto the griddle, then was back to the knife, chopping up some white bulbs. There was a sudden stinging smell that made him sniff. She looked up and saw him. Jumped slightly.

“Is that my dinner? What did you just put in?”

“Siboll.”

“That doesn’t smell very good.”

“Wait a minute. It softens and becomes sweet.” In her own domain, and busy, she was far more confident.

Kylo looked around the room. It was ridiculously low-tech.

“I thought my meals were prepared in a proper kitchen.”

“Sometimes I use them. But I prefer making my food here. Less explanations. Don’t worry, you probably eat better than anyone else in the Palace.”

Kylo snorted. It was probably true. Though the Huxes probably got food parcels from home, knowing them. Care packages from Mother.

He noticed she had his lunch leftovers rolled into a flatbread. She ate one-handed in wolfish bites, stirring a pot with her other hand. Her dinner, he supposed. She ate as well as him, then.

“Here, try this.” She handed up a spoonful of sauce for him to try. “More salt?”

It was delicious. The siboll had indeed mellowed into a sweet, pungent flavour. He suspected she was asking about the salt only out of politeness. She needed his advice on cooking about as much as he needed her advice on saber technique. Once again he felt a twinge of uncertainty: did Snoke mean him to enjoy things so much?

“This’ll be done in about ten minutes. I’ll bring it round to your rooms then.”

He left her to it.

 

 

 


	30. Loyalties and Desires

Kylo and Spikey quickly grew comfortable with their old pattern again. She read to him, argued with him and made him laugh sometimes. He knew she went to play music with the comfort girls over in the West Wing whenever she could. Hux was there sometimes, she admitted, but she avoided him as much as possible.

Kylo did not ask her to play the chitarra or sing for him again. He told himself music was a Hux thing, and therefore to be avoided. But the truth was that it made him uneasy. Music was undeniably a power in her, and there was room for only one power around him: the Force. Music was something unknowable. Something that did not serve him, as she must serve him. Not like her reading served him.

As for instance on this night.

Kylo watched Spikey turn the lights down except one to read by. She picked up the books that were on the table. “Want to hear more of Dervan Ree and the Merchants of Death?” she asked.

“No, not really,” said Kylo. “It’d make a better holovid than a book.”

“True. Terrible writing. Though all those space battles would be good to watch. So we’ll just leave Dervan Ree in the clutches of Tania Ten Tentacles, shall we? What else, then?”

“You choose,” said Kylo, distracted. He’d become aware of a watchful presence. _Hi, Rey._

“Hmm. ‘Of all the lands and men I have known, let me sing the praises of Demius, who dauntless stood when his enemies held the very lightning in their hands.’ Umm…Not that. If I had permission to get into the Palace library I could find more… Oh, here! This!”

Spikey curled up on a chair next to the light, and started reading short poems that were full of twists. Little splashes of colour, miniature scenes, the subtle unsaid moments between friends, the beat of truth in a conversation that is not often spoken. Sometimes she didn’t get them, and tried reading them a different way, teasing out the meaning.

_What are you doing?_ asked Rey.

_Going to sleep,_ replied Kylo, pulling the sheet up to his chin and stretching luxuriously under it. Rey startled slightly, almost breaking the link. Perhaps she was embarrassed to intrude at such a time? But she settled down to listen with him. He could feel questions turning in her mind, but she wasn’t pushing them to where he could read them. What good luck, thought Kylo privately, and smiled. Rey’s going to meet the cultured side of Kylo Ren, he thought.

* * *

 

It was an absolute condition that Spikey could not go to play for other people if Kylo wanted her for anything, and she chafed against that. Lissa did what she could to smooth things over when people requested Spikey’s playing in particular, if she was not available. Lissa could play well enough to please them, and her dazzling looks overcame most objections.

One particular afternoon, Kylo was hungry, and getting more annoyed by the minute. It was the end of a long day, he’d trained hard with that old bore Hestar Litt, and now he was left pacing his rooms waiting for Spikey to show up with some food. She charged in late, hot and out of breath.

“Where’ve you been?”

“The girls had an entertainment at the officer’s quarters, and needed me along to accompany. It went on longer than I expected. Sorry.” She laid out the dishes quickly like a gambler dealing cards. Never clumsy around food, he noticed.

“What do they all talk about, over there?”

“The war. I think they’re pretty frustrated. While the New Republic is holding elections to replace the leaders they lost on Hosnian Prime, it looks like most of the New Order effort is going towards propaganda to destabilise that process.”

“I know this. I go to briefings.” Kylo was suddenly struck with a possibility. If Spikey could only keep her mouth shut, she was in a good position to see and hear things that he couldn’t. “What I’m asking is, what do they think about it all?”

Spikey gave him a long, considering look before answering. No doubt wondering how much trouble spying could cause, and for whom. “They say the only military action they’re seeing is swagger and intimidation. Showing strength to frighten voters. They’d like their battles to be real battles, I think.”

“Do they trust Snoke’s leadership?” he asked.

“I think so. I mean, they’re pretty depressed and angry about the Starkiller base being blown up, and they seem to think that’s your fault.”

Kylo slammed a glass down on the table, then checked his temper. It should be no surprise to him what Hux’s men would think.

“How did the Resistance blow it up? I thought they were like this tiny little outfit.” Spikey sounded rather pleased. “Wow. A whole planet. That must have been really something.”

“I would expect you to support them,” snarled Kylo. “Those losers.”

“Yeah well, what has the First Order ever done for me?”

“What has the Resistance ever done for you?”

“Good point.” She looked depressed suddenly.

“Where are your loyalties, anyway?”   
“I’m loyal to me.”

“Maybe I should check,” he said, standing up and walking over to where she was sitting on a couch. He was angry and bored, and Spikey was an available target. And in any case he should be suspicious of what she did around Hux’s men.

“Sure. Read my mind. I’m not a Resistance spy.” She lost her cool though, when he knelt straddling her knees and holding her wrists, pinning her in place. She mastered herself quickly. “This is hardly necessary,” she muttered. “Why so paranoid?”

He wanted to test the kind of Force reading he’d been practicing. He leaned into her mind. It was still a storm of birds. “It’s such a mess in there.”

She grimaced at his discomfort, which she didn’t seem to feel herself.

He leaned in again, more gently this time. He started to see past the flick-flick-flick. There was an architecture here, just not one he could grasp. He allowed himself to relax into the movement of her thoughts instead of fighting their maddening instability.

Now he could see better: memories of her family. They were all dead, as she’d said, and she had been very fond of them. Sometimes the birdstorm became her version of his whirling dream, he realised. The darkness was very much there in her too. But she rode it somehow. He leaned in further. He saw her humour, like a bright metallic element that flashed back everything, transformed it, made all her darknesses bearable. A kind of buoyancy that made him want to smile.

She was telling the truth about her loyalties: she mocked almost everyone. She had some friends among the comfort girls and other small fry, but that was it. He probed further.

“You don’t like Hux. Don’t worry, I don’t much like him either.” He smiled down at her. “Don’t let him hear you call him a crazy ginger psycho.” She smiled back uncertainly. Last time they’d gotten this close things hadn’t ended well. He shook off that thought and leaned in to her more, his face inches from hers, trying to see more. “Why are you spending so much time at Hux’s?”

“His family like to think they’re cultured. His brother actually knows a bit about music, and likes to hear me play. I don’t think Hux cares.”

“He has a brother? What does he do?”

“I don’t know. He’s in a uniform of some kind. His name’s Beran. You should see their mother though, she is vile. She’s been around the Palace for the last few weeks. I’ve never seen her miss a chance to get the knife in.”

“That would explain a lot about that family.” He stared into her eyes and said softly. “You like me though don’t you?”

“Yeah….well!” she seemed lost for words for a moment, then continued uncertainly. “This you, sure. But in a minute you’ll go all Dark and hate yourself and me, and I’ll get hurt. Like last time. You scare me! And you make me angry, and it’s not as though you do anything useful for me. The most I can say is that I’m not bored.”

“You want me! Don’t deny it, I can see it.” He drew back, laughing under his breath. She squirmed in embarrassment, then rallied weakly.

“I want a lot of things! But I won’t get any benefit from chasing them. I’ve told you that before. And normal people can feel two opposite things at the same time, you know.”

“I can see your desires. All bound up in chains.” And he could: a long line of them, chained to a wall, in darkness, hands and mouths bound. The downside of Force-reading people: you often saw so much sadness. He let go her wrists and put his arms around her, feeling the firm warmth of her back with appreciation. “You could unbind one or two of those desires,” he whispered in her ear.

She laughed bitterly. “Give it a rest! I’m not that self-destructive. And you might not be top of my list of things I want to do.”

“Cutting too. You still want to cut yourself, when things go wrong.”

“And cutting, yes. But I don’t do it. Fun being me, huh?”

He was fascinated by this back and forth, this fluid dance between pain and laughter. “Why did you stop?”

She thought for a while. “I stopped believing that hurting myself put any control back in my hands. It was only doing other people’s work for them. _I don’t fucking deserve that!_ And my blood wouldn’t bring back the dead.”

Her words were a blow to his gut, of a truth he still struggled to accept about himself. Sometimes it seemed that everything he did, he only hurt himself more. Then he went out and looked for more pain, pain he thought he deserved.

It was strange, so strange, looking into the mind of somebody that was not wholly hostile, not squirming to escape, and not, like Snoke, trying to dominate. (Dominate? Where did that thought come from?) Interesting, and weird, and painful in a different way to what he was used to. Painful to be understood. If only Rey could see him like this, maybe they wouldn’t be doing all this maddening dancing around the Galaxy, hiding from each other. He shook off the feeling.

“You don’t seem to get hurt when I read your mind,” he said. Another curious thing.

“Both my brother and sister had the Force. I don’t know how old I was before I realised it wasn’t normal to have other people’s thoughts in my head. It was just something we did, a game. Secret messages.”

There was something else he’d seen that surprised him, and he felt for it. She felt…..protective of him. He drew back, stunned. _“What?”_

“Well, you were so sick when you arrived, and you had those nightmares. And the lines on your face looked like such hurt.”

“Lines?” he said blankly. Her hand came up and she touched the corner of his mouth, brushed a finger in a stroke from his nose to his chin.

“Here. When someone is asleep, you can see their pain but you don’t know its cause. Whether it’s mental or physical. Or if it’s anger and bitterness, which are just pain when it’s turned outwards. And now you’re better, but so miserable. Cooped up, eating your heart out over something, wanting to be somewhere else.”

They stared at each other for a while. He had been going to do the obvious thing. He hadn’t sat across her like this without intending to be aroused, and he was aroused. But it would also destroy this strange, delicate thing that sometimes existed between them. Some other nameless kind of relationship. She was afraid of him, but she met his eyes anyway.

“You’re a funny little thing, aren’t you,” he breathed, and shook his head. He came to decision and stood up, releasing her.

“Umm. Thanks? I think?” she said, looking up at him quizzically. “Hey, do you want me to send down Lissa or one of the other girls?”

So she’d felt the bulge in his pants. He flicked a hand at her. It was embarrassing to be read that easily. “Yes all right.”

She bounded out as usual. He shook his head again. Weirdo.

 

 

 

 

 

 


	31. More Conversations with Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo and Rey link more easily through the Force, with practice. These are their third and fourth conversations.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo woke very early, still tired but feeling better than he had in a long time. Smiling to himself, he got out of the wreckage he and Lissa had made of the bedclothes and cleaned himself up before heading outside, where the sunrise was making rainbows as it touched the dew on top of the walls. Life could be good, when you focused purely on the physical, he thought. He climbed up to the wall-top pergola that gave the best view of the Palace and its surroundings, and settled down to look for Rey.

He made the link with greater ease than before and found her lying in the thick grass of her island, face to face with a small plant. She was thinking to herself, _yesterday it only had these tough grey fists, and now look! It has opened! It is like a little sun!_ She was staring in wonder at a small flower that had opened, the first in a clump of clenched buds covering the ground. Through her intense gaze he saw how magical it seemed to her: a white flower with a dusting of gold where the petals met a bold black centre. She ran her finger around the edges of the petals, and the fine silvery hairs that formed a halo around the flower moved in response, seeking the sun.

“They’re called sungazers,” said a familiar voice behind her. Luke. Rey rolled over on her back to look at him. Kylo’s shock at the sight of him alerted her to his intrusion.

_Out of my head. Stop spying on me._

Kylo didn’t reply. Luke looked old. It was always a shock to see people age. He could never have imagined him with that scruffy salt-and-pepper beard, or such deep lines of tiredness and sadness around his eyes. Or the way his shoulders had rounded. All the pride of youth gone out of him. Seeing him, Kylo couldn’t even name the mixture of feelings in his mind. Rey took advantage of his confusion and threw off the link. Kylo opened his eyes. All around him were the Palace gardens bathed in sunrise. He could have picked her enough flowers to cover her head to toe, all of them different. Imagine what she’d think of that, he thought.

Another of Spikey’s mysterious flower-twists lay on the stone table, rather wilted. So she came here to be alone too, he thought.

* * *

 Another afternoon and Kylo was sitting in the wall-top pergola again, looking for Rey. It was the only place that seemed to get a breath of wind in the humid late-summer heat. Purple thunderclouds hovered around the horizon, but here in the Palace the air was heavy and hot. Like a blanket, closing him into this remote, hidden planet. Nature was no help right now. He thought of the old sub-light technologies for reading the cosmos. Imagined the Force spread like the long arms of a radio telescope array. Imagined listening, like a radio disc cupping its ear to the sky. He stretched back in his seat, spreading his arms behind him. His Force senses floating like a compass needle looking for its North. _Where are you, Rey?_

He heard Spikey’s light tread on the stairs and she arrived with a water pitcher and glasses. She laid them on the small stone table, cracked open that black fruit with the astringent juice, and let it tint the water. Suddenly Kylo was aware he was seeing with doubled vision, a strange, strange feeling. Rey was in his head this time, looking.

_Hi,_ he thought cautiously. No reply. She was still getting used to this. He waited. She waited. Possibly no amount of training from Snoke could help him out-wait Rey.

“You want anything else?” Spikey asked. Kylo shook his head.

“Can I go early tonight? Some of the officer’s wives want some background music tonight.”

Kylo nodded yes, and Spikey did a silly balletic leap to the top of the staircase. “You are the only adult person I have ever seen that actually jumps for joy,” Kylo said. She turned back, grinned and shrugged.

“Oh, this is funny,” she said, pausing before descending. “You know what Hux likes? Guavian bagpipes. A whole marching band of them, with drummers. He says they inspire the men. He played us a clip of them, and it was like the hellfire death of the universe set to music.” She skipped away down the stairs.

_You’re nice to her,_ thought Rey wonderingly, after a pause. _She doesn’t seem afraid…._

_Serving the Dark doesn’t mean I have to terrorise everyone all the time._

_But you like to. It makes you feel powerful. In the interrogation room. I felt it. You wanted to be in control._

_I had a job to do_ , he countered. Hoping she believed him because it wasn’t entirely true. Terrorising people was a thrill, and getting rid of obstacles to Snoke’s plans was a pure pleasure.

_Spikey is hardly a threat,_ he explained. _She’s good at her job, and she’s funny._

_In other words, she knows her place. You’re all charm, you. I bet she secretly hates you._

_I’d know if she did. And she doesn’t. Quite the opposite._

_UGH! What’s wrong with her?_ Rey broke the link, trailing a mixture of outrage and confusion.

Kylo smiled to himself. He’d thought of another way to reel Rey in. She thought he was no more than a monster, did she? He’d show her different. The nicer he was to Spikey, the more puzzled Rey would be…and fascinated, he hoped.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting two chapters a day from now on, since this story is basically finished apart from minor tinkering, and a couple of new stories are on the boil instead.


	32. Equinox, and Temptation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> More about the Huxes
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

It was the equinox, and the sun was rising due East of the Palace. Spikey was on her way to forage in the orchards. But she’d made a detour to the marble dock on the howler swans’ lake. The air smelt pleasantly of woodsmoke: some of the Palace’s other inhabitants had celebrated the equinox with a noisy bonfire party. Now Spikey had her own observances to make.

She laid out her usual twist of flowers, five this time. Today she would name her father and brother too, she thought. Even though her brother wasn’t exactly among her honoured dead. For the form of the thing though. Family mattered. She made the opening gesture with her arms and started to sing quietly.

_To all here living and present_   
_To all spirits of those dead, and yet to come…_

Suddenly Hux and his brother Beran rounded the nearest hedge, their black boots silent on the dewy grass. Spikey stopped, but they’d heard her. She knuckled a tear out of one eye before turning.

“Are you honouring the dead?” Beran asked.

“It’s equinox, so I thought I might…..”

“Can you do one for us?” Beran asked. The General frowned at him but Beran said, “He would have liked it. He liked the old traditions.” The elder Hux nodded sharply.

“Give me his name, and I will give my breath to him,” said Spikey formally.

“Brendol Hux.”

She made the prayer again. It was uncomfortable putting the General’s father next to her family, but she raised her voice anyway to do as good a job as possible. Across the lake, the howler swans joined it with long shivering cries, and flew up suddenly in a group.

“That’s meant to be good luck,” Beran said.

“You’re such a superstitious idiot,” his brother said. But there was no malice in it, and Beran smiled back unabashed and then turned an approving look to Spikey.

“Thank you for that. We’ll have to get you over to sing for us soon.” The two men walked off, deep in conversation.

Well that was unexpected, Spikey thought. Normally she would take time to think about her family and have a quiet cry by herself. Now the mood was broken.

* * *

 

A few days later, Spikey was indeed invited to play at a small party in Beran’s rooms. General Hux was there and a couple of diplomats and their wives and husbands. Spikey was vaguely aware of having seen them about. Their conversations seemed important to them, so she made no effort to dominate the atmosphere with her music.

After she had played for a while, General Hux himself came over, bearing a glass of some sweet cocktail. He offered it to Spikey. Rather surprised, she accepted it. Hux seemed to take the break in her playing as an invitation to talk to her, and settled himself on a chair next to her.

“So, what do you do when you’re not gracing us with your music?” he said. “My brother tells me you’re not with the other fine young ladies who visit us sometimes.”

“No, I’m a room servant. I learned to play when I was young though, so the comfort girls ask me along to accompany when they entertain.” Spikey wanted this conversation to end quickly. She knew the vile names the men normally used to refer to people like Lissa and Andala. They didn’t call them “fine ladies”.

“You obviously were trained very well,” said Hux, smiling. “It seems a shame to keep you working in such menial roles when you have such potential for….other things.”

Spikey gave him a sharp look. She’d never got the impression that he had much appreciation of music. Hux must have sensed her doubts, because he said quickly, “My brother tells me you’re one of the finest singers he’s ever heard.” His brother came over and nodded in confirmation.

“He’s very kind,” said Spikey, dropping her gaze. She felt herself blushing and a little songbird of happiness started to strut in her heart. Though she knew it was nonsense! The girls had shown her holovids of the latest music from the Core worlds. They filled her with such a hunger to learn that she spent hours practicing, trying to capture the least shadow of that greatness.

“So, who are you serving at the moment?” Hux’s slight emphasis on the word “serving” made it seem ignoble. Beneath her.

“Uh…..Kylo Ren.”

Hux and his brother exchanged looks. It was one of those looks Spikey would remember later, but the flicker of thought in their faces was too quick for her to interpret.

“Really? Our famous Sith trainee? That must be interesting!” said Hux.

“Does he treat you well?” asked Beran. “I’ve heard he’s got quite the temper.”

“Uh….well,” said Spikey. She wasn’t sure what to say. These didn’t seem like safe people to gossip with. On the other hand, what were they really saying? Were they offering her a way out? “I haven’t lost any limbs yet,” she temporised. “But it’s not a great job.”

“Do you feel safe, working for him?” asked Beran. “My brother here’s worked with him for years, and I’ve heard all about the things he’s capable of. He’s ruthless.”

“I guess he’ll be gone soon enough,” Spikey said. “Snoke will send him somewhere else, right?”

“And then you’ll have to serve another one,” Beran replied, sounding regretful. Spikey looked at him with a sort of flutter in her chest. What did he mean by that? Was this how people got freed? She had no idea how these kinds of conversations went!

“I sometimes wish I could go where I could learn more, and play for more people…”

“Yes, it’s a shame she’s stuck in this place. It’s such a backwater,” Beran said to his brother. General Hux gave him an amused look, and turned to Spikey. Still amused, considering her. Feeling his power. Spikey put on a detached expression. It wouldn’t do to show the hope in her heart. Or was she meant to look pathetically grateful? She couldn’t tell. With Kylo it was easy — you threw out some conversational bait, and no matter how random it was, or how little he wanted to talk, he was too impulsive to resist. General Hux had no such weaknesses.

Hux raised his glass in a toast to her. Nothing more was said, and she resumed playing, puzzled. Had she blown it? The Huxes walked away and talked to other people. She didn’t know what she was meant to have said. She almost wanted to cry.

 


	33. Black and White

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo Ren talks to Rey again. Plus free will versus predestination. Or something. 
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

The Palace people called the moons of their planet by practical names: Copper, Flighty and Big. Only Big was up, shedding its strong silver light as Kylo sat by one of the small garden ponds, trying to link with Rey. He’d heard the people say that Copper and Flighty were unlucky, and Big was lucky. Stupid superstition. They were just balls of rock.

Luck was with him anyway, it seemed. He felt that softening in the walls of his mind, felt the Force hook into her mind. It was night on her island too. She was up high again, and she too had a full moon which reflected a broad silver road across the sea. She seemed to be expecting him.

 _You. What do you want?_ she thought.

 _I’m just wondering if you’re happy to stay on your island forever,_ Kylo thought.

 _I will come looking for you when I’m ready,_ she replied. _Then watch out!_

_I suppose Luke and Leia want you to bring me to them. So I can be judged and punished._

_I suppose Snoke wants you to bring me to him,_ she countered. _If you had any sense, you’d stay where you are. I’m not joining your side._

 _We are enemies,_ he thought miserably. _It may be our destiny to fight. But I would rather you joined us. Look at this place. It could be yours too. That has to be better than freezing in a stone hut._

 _What, you think I want to be some sort of a princess?_ she said scornfully. _Has Snoke painted some picture of you and I as his right and left hands in the Force, ruling together from his secret Palace?_

 _He will break you, if you defy him,_ Kylo said.

_He’ll have to catch me first._

They sat looking at their respective moonlights. He sensed resolution from her. Finding him was a job she had to do, as he had to do his job for Snoke. Her hatred for him had attenuated, overlaid with more complex feelings as she came to know him better. He confused her. Well, he was confused too.

_Well of course you confuse me! You hate yourself so much. I would too, if I’d done what you did. But I don’t know why you think the cure for hating yourself is to find worse things to do._

_I have given all my loyalty to the Dark. That’s not hard to understand,_ he said.

 _Look at the moonlight on the water,_ she said after a while. Moonlight was almost all he could see: the light in slices and slashes across the black pond before him, and silvering the sea where Rey was. _They are opposites, the black and the white. The water does not seek to swallow the moon, and the light does not consume the water. Side by side. That’s what Luke says._

 _Luke can be pretty poetic when he’s quoting somebody else,_ Kylo said. _But what does that mean for us, for the way people live? Sometimes I don’t think he knows what he means._

 _He tries to put things into words, but I think he’s mostly always done things by instinct,_ Rey said. _He didn’t get a lot of training from Yoda, in the end._

There was a long pause. One of her spacious silences, set aside from animosity for the time being. He liked the deep quiet in her.

 _Have you ever thought….that maybe nobody understands the Force any better than us? All the talk, all the writings, they don’t describe how it feels,_ she continued at last. _How it feels to me…I mean, Yoda was meant to be the greatest teacher. He’d lived so long. But I don’t really get anything he’s supposed to have said._

 _Yoda would have been a nightmare as a teacher,_ agreed Kylo. _But Snoke….Snoke knows. He’s studied it all his life, and he’s lived a long time. If you want real knowledge, you need Snoke._

_No thanks. Look at you, you misery-guts._

Kylo’s angry reply was forestalled by the crunch of gravel. Small feet. It was Spikey, who often circled out into the gardens to get some fresh air when she’d finished performing or cooking late at night. The chitarra was slung over her shoulder, so it was the former.

 _Ah, and there’s your pet poet_ , said Rey. Amused.

“Hi. What are you doing out so late?” said Spikey, although it was none of her business. “Looking for Rey?”

“Yes,” he said in a tone he hoped was discouraging. He had a premonition he was going to be caught in a three-way conversation with two opinionated women. Rey was still lurking in his head.

“Why can’t you just leave her be? You here in your part of the Galaxy, doing Sith-y things, and she in hers? Isn’t that enough of that Balance?”

“Snoke wants her,” said Kylo. “Like she is now, she’s a threat. Either she works with us, or he destroys her. Otherwise we’ll never bring order to the Galaxy.” _Hear that, Rey?_ he thought.

“Look around you!” said Spikey, her voice crackling with sudden passion.

 _Oh no, here goes,_ thought Kylo.

“Here we are, in the heart of Snoke’s kingdom. The very Palace of the First Order. And do you see order? Hux and his officers, with their drunken orgies? The snarl of feuds and spite everywhere, like me and Vole? The politicians, gambling their families as pawns in a game to move closer to Snoke’s favour? And the politics! I’ve served drinks at the big conferences in the Throne Room, I’ve seen it! A parliament of loth-rats, nibbling at the foundations of the very thing they seek to uphold!”

Kylo was silent. Spikey should be a fucking orator! Rey was eating this up, and he couldn’t dislodge her. He clenched his fists at the smug agreement he felt from her.

Spikey couldn’t see any of that in the dark. She’d sat next to him. Her hands moved automatically over the frets of the chitarra, wandering from one chord to another, barely more than a whisper of sound.

“What’s your answer, then?” asked Kylo bitterly.

Spikey did not speak, but after a while the chitarra’s sound bloomed and hardened into a series of chords: rich, compelling, settling at last on a ringing last chord that died away into the night.

“Listen,” she said, and played them again. “Each chord is a step leading to the next. Each step sure and certain, leading to an inescapable conclusion. Listen again: how you cannot change a note of it, because each note is perfect where it is.” Again, the great striding, flowering sounds, landing at last on that incontestable final chord.

“These are the opening notes of Al-Mazaan’s great Invocation,” she said. “I don’t know the whole piece, which is long, and it’s not written for chitarra anyway. But I know the beginning and end. You know the end is coming, and when it does you recognise it because you’ve been waiting for it since the beginning. Listen.”

She played again the same series of chords that seemed to lead to that final resolution, but instead, just before getting there, the chords changed. They went a different way. Eight more chords, and the music arrived in a completely different place. Yet it was as completely resolved as the first version. “Every note in its perfect place. You could not change any of it: you feel it goes the way it must go. Yet at the last, we change all of it. This ending is not the one you expected, yet now it is impossible to imagine it finishing any other way.”

“What are you saying?”

“I don’t know how to say it in words, better than that. That there is no one answer, no perfect way that trumps all other ways…That we create every moment ourselves, and it changes. I don’t know. Things move. Snoke might like to bind things to an unchanging rule of law, freezing everything in one place, but even ice moves. Glaciers move, the water moves secretly below the ice. And people are like that too, only more so.”

They sat in silence a while more. The noise of small night insects filled in where the chitarra had been. A slight breeze rose and stirred the leaves in the arbours, made the flowers nod in their beds. Rey was still linked to him, a fascinated presence inside his head. Thinking.

“It’s getting cold,” Spikey said at last. Kylo stood and held out his hand to pull her up off the bench where she sat. Spikey took it without comment and slung the chitarra over her shoulder by its strap. They walked without speaking, her small hand in his, through the wandering paths back to the Palace. At the garden gate they parted, as if by some silent agreement.

 _What are you?_ asked Rey. _What is she?_ He almost thought she’d gone, but no.

 _I don’t know what any of us is._ Friend, enemy, Knight of Ren, servant, scavenger, lover … no not that! Murderer.

Rey left abruptly on that last thought. Kylo entered his apartment and sat wearily on the bed, looking around the empty room. Please, no dreams tonight, he thought.

 

 


	34. Diamonds

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Palace Intrigue
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

“How's the search for Rey going?” she asked him one morning.

“I haven’t found where she is. But we talk.” he said shortly.

“She still doesn’t like you then?” Spikey asked. Kylo made an irritated noise in his throat. 

“Well promise her you won’t kill her or something. You’re all charm when you make an effort. Really.” Spikey unfolded fresh sheets with a snap and wafted them over the bed. “Absolutely no idea where she is?”

“Not yet. Soon.” Lately he felt as though he was seeing Rey through a multi-faceted crystal that splayed his vision in all directions. But he was close to being able to straighten out his lines of sight and make them line up with the real world. Then he would know what direction to search in the physical world. He described that to Spikey to appease her voracious curiosity, then asked her to sort out his dress clothes for a diplomatic function that evening.

Suddenly she stopped clearing the table. “Oh, I nearly forgot. I was given this last night to give to you,” she said. She pulled a tiny box out of a pocket somewhere. He looked at it suspiciously. 

“Who’s it from? Have you opened it?”

“I’m not stupid. No I haven’t. It came via one of the West Wing servants who got it from somebody he didn’t know in somebody’s entourage. So, a mystery.” She put it on the table and they both stared at it for a while. Cautiously he reached out with the Force. There was a catch. With a bit of concentration he could undo it and pop the box open. 

Inside was a delicate creation of silver and diamonds. Two of them, nestled in some sort of rich blue velvet. They both stared.

“Secret admirer or assassin?” asked Spikey. “What if I run the food assayer over them?” She did so. It registered nothing harmful on the pieces of jewellery.

“What are they?” asked Kylo, holding one up.

“I think they’re some sort of earring, or ear-cuff. I’ve seen some of the young swells wearing them lately. Women too, but mainly men.”

“Put them on and show me how they work.”

Spikey fiddled with them for a while. “Oh I see….they open up this way and then grip the back of your ear.” She walked over to a wall mirror and had a look. The ear-cuffs blazed splendidly on her brown skin. But they were designed to go with his skin, Kylo thought. She would suit gold…

“Nice. Somebody wants to make an impression. Or wants you to make an impression. It’s hard to tell….” she continued.

“Who? And why?”

“The obvious guess is that somebody wants you to wear them tonight. And they want something from you. Or they want you to know that their heart burns for you. Or they want somebody else to know that you have their favour. Or they want other people to think you’re their lover already. Or for people to think that they’ve bought your support for some cause of theirs.” 

“Gungan gods,” muttered Kylo.

“Or they’ve stolen them from some politician’s strongbox and given them to you so that he’ll see them on you and think you’re having an affair with his wife.”

She paused for a moment, grinning at her own thoughts, and said, “Or they think you have big ears and they want to draw attention to them for a laugh. The possibilities are endless.”

“I don’t enjoy these parties.”

“Hmm, yeah I can imagine. Anyway these are uncomfortable.” She struggled to get them off. There was a trick to it. “If you’re curious, you could wear them to this party tonight, but with your hair hiding them so nobody can tell unless they get up close. The giver will probably come up to you to see if you’re wearing them or not.” She left them on the table.

“Come back tonight to help me dress. My boots need polishing too.”

* * * 

That afternoon he linked with Rey while she was in a boat. She was very nervous of the sea, which seemed wild to her, though Kylo thought it was calm enough. The fish were not biting. 

“Can’t you call them with the Force?” she asked Luke, who was sitting facing her. Kylo kept still inside her head. Rey had a growing suspicion he was there anyway. But she was distracted.

“That would be a Dark thing to do. We can use the Force to find them, but it’s not fair to make them take the bait,” said Luke.

“Have you ever gone hungry?” Rey asked him. 

Luke shook his head. “Not for long.”

Rey had a vivid memory of terrible, stomach-cramping hunger, of being weak with it. Kylo winced at it, because he knew that feeling very well. Rey picked up his reaction and turned her attention to him. Luke didn’t seem aware.

_When have you gone hungry?_ Rey asked him. _You live in a palace with servants._

_It was part of my training. I had to fast for weeks._

_What for?_

_A form of test. Snoke wants to know that his disciples are strong._ Kylo had been proud of how much he could endure, but Rey’s reaction made it plain that anyone who went hungry when they didn’t need to was practically doing it for fun. Kylo winced again. _It’s a way of proving loyalty. People are nothing if they have no loyalty._

Rey had a mental image of her friends. Finn, the ex-stormtrooper, who came back for her.

_He was a traitor._

_To you. Not to me. When he could choose his own destiny, he risked his life to come back for me. That’s loyalty._

_Not your family though. They never came back. Where’s the loyalty in that?_ It was standard practice to attack somebody’s confidence during an interrogation. But this time it felt like a low blow even for him.

_I’m sure they would have if they could! Maz thought so._ Rey sounded desperate to convince him — or herself. Kylo knew her loneliness all too well.

_Okay, so they would have come back. They seemed nice enough,_ Kylo thought. Flinging out another hook before Rey could withdraw again.

_What, you’ve met them?_ Her shock was crystal clear through the link.

_I think I met them. I think we’ve met four times, not three. You were a very small child. You and your family were visiting some country estate, and I was there with Luke and … you had a brother that was a candidate for Luke’s Academy…_

Chaos from Rey’s side of the link. He continued, unsure whether it was a good idea or not. _You climbed a wall. I offered to help you down but you jumped into Luke’s arms instead._

_What?_ Rey was beyond coherent speech — close to tears, in fact. He could pick up her outrage that even _he_ remembered her family and something of her life before Jakku, when she could not. He could feel her disgust and despair at the way her life was entangled with his. He was the price she had to pay for her new life, with all its promising futures. He was the weight around her neck, impossible to get rid of.

He wanted to ask her why she had not let him catch her, all those years ago. “One of you will not catch me. The dark one.” For years he had wanted to know why she had said that. Now was not the time to ask. She wouldn’t even remember. He changed the subject.

_So, how’s your training with Luke going? Is he teaching you anything or do you just fish all day?_

_Waiting for fish is boring. But we have to live._

_Where are you?_

_OUT!!!_ She broke the link. Kylo leapt to his feet and prowled around the room, trying to outpace memories he didn’t want.

* * * 

He hadn’t made up his mind about the ear-cuffs until Spikey had finished arranging him in his formal tunic and cloak and boots. Maybe it was worth finding out who was causing intrigue, he thought, and instructed Spikey to put them on him. She had to stand on tip-toe, leaning up against him to reach. He enjoyed the sensation of her fiddling with them, trying to mould them to sit securely on his ears and then arranging his hair over them to almost-hide them. He looked down on her face, inches away from his. He could see a smudge of flour or something on the side of her nose, and she smelt of the spices she cooked with. A good smell. She met his eyes and he smiled. 

“What.” She often said it like that to him, in a flat voice so it didn’t sound like a question. He’d done it to her the first day they met. Now they both did it.

“I can’t stand these functions. Hux will be there too tonight, just to improve my mood. I might even be introduced to his delightful family.”

“Don’t go then. Do you have to?”

“Snoke insisted. There’s a group getting together to talk strategy and he’ll be there. Or his hologram anyway.”

They were standing almost nose to nose, and she had let her hands rest on his shoulders. She looked up at him with a serious expression. After a moment she sighed and said, “Neither of us is really free, are we?” 

He felt like something small snapped under his heart.

He might have put his hands around her waist and pulled her closer. He might have kissed her. Instead he dropped his head and rested his forehead and nose against hers. He shut his eyes and they breathed each other’s breath for a long moment. Then she gave him that odd, comradely squeeze of the shoulders, as she did sometimes, and let him go. He turned and left.


	35. Spikey's Party

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo has to make an appearance at First Order entertainments. Spikey has her own parties to go to.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo strode along the corridors towards the night’s festivities, his boots throwing echoes off the chilly marble expanses. Through the high windows he could see the glitter of the Palace’s great halls and terraces in the central pile above. Elegant figures showed silhouetted against the brightly-lit windows or promenading on the high terrace. 

The diamond cuffs were irritating. Kylo reached up worked them off with difficulty. Pretty things, and worth a fortune, but on second (third? fourth?) thoughts he surely didn’t need the intrigue they represented. He let them drop on the floor and walked on towards the centre of the Palace and its hum of activity. Power and politics in its playful mode. He could think of nothing worse.

* * *

Meanwhile back in Kylo’s quarters, Spikey was jumping up and down beating her fists against her head and chanting, “I. Am. Such. A. Fuck. Ing. _IDIOT!!!”_ She bounded into the bathroom and sluiced her face under the tap. “I could totally have kissed him. And why not? What the hell is wrong with me? I’ve hit the jackpot. This is the fucking quinella of stupid doomed romance cliches!” She hit herself in time to her angry words. “Tall! Dark! Handsome! Powerful! Evil!”

She plunged her arms and wrists into cold water, then her face again. But cold water didn’t even begin to address her problem, which was the feeling that the whole centre of her body had turned to molten lava. Heat in her groin that no cold bath would put out.

Furiously she wiped all trace of her presence from the bathroom, slapped the call band on her wrist, and stormed out of the apartment. She’d just had a better thought: she’d visit the girls. They probably weren’t busy tonight. Spikey’s feet flew along the corridors and up the stairs to the Comfort Wing.

Indeed, she could hear a babble of noise and laughter when she knocked on the door to the Comfort Girls’ common room. A tall, pale girl with a jewelled fountain of golden curls piled on her head opened the door to her.

“Oh hi Spikey. Good timing. We’re having a party!” 

Indeed everyone from the Comfort Wing seemed to be there - a couple of dozen young men and women, all of them exceptionally beautiful. 

“Hi, Aresa! What’s the occasion?” Spikey asked.

“Delita’s leaving - she got her freedom,” Aresa said. “And there’s a big troupe of Devorian nautch-dancers brought in to entertain at that First Order party tonight, so we won’t be busy. It seemed like the perfect time to have a celebration for Delita.”

Delita, a tiny woman like a delicate blackbird, was standing in a group crowded around a table laden with a marvellous assortment of bottles of all shapes and colours. “Want a shot? We’re mixing drinks here.”

“No, I might still be on call,” Spikey answered. “When do you leave? Where are you going?”

“Next week. I’m marrying my Lothian farmer. We’re going to raise moofs.”

Spikey knew that Delita and her man were childhood sweethearts, and marvelled at their patience and steadfastness through Delita’s long years of indenture as a sex worker.

“You’ll need a new wardrobe,” laughed one of the others. Indeed, the thought of Delita mucking out a stall seemed incongruous. She looked so exquisitely fine, dressed in emerald silk like a precious doll.

“Here, have one of these, anyway, if you can’t drink.” A beautiful foxy-faced young man tossed a pastry in Spikey’s direction, and she snapped it out of the air. “You’ll have to pay for it though - we’d like some music!”

Lissa produced the big chitarra from somewhere and brought it over. She had a small glass of some golden liquid in her other hand. Her huge blue eyes were alight with mischief as she handed both to Spikey. “Oh come on, just a small one,” she said. “If Kylo’s at that other party, you won’t be needed for hours. Besides, I want to hear all the gossip. All about that delicious boy especially.” Lissa shot Spikey a sharp look, seeing something in her face. “Oh. He kissed you yet?”

“Do I have a sign painted on my forehead or something?” said Spikey irritably.

“A little. You’re blushing. Is it a love story? Tell us everything.” 

“A love story to outlast the ages,” Spikey intoned grandly. She struck a couple of dramatic flourishes from the chitarra, and the party babble died down as people turned to listen. “OK, so I _almost_ kissed him.”

“And why didn’t you, silly girl?” 

“Oh, I’m keeping myself for my prince, whoever he is. Some day he’ll come….” Spikey hit more dramatic chords. “Which is a shame, because otherwise the burning purity of my love would save Kylo Ren from the dark path his destiny demands.” A storm of notes from the chitarra. _“I, only I, can save the black-hearted hero, for my love is brighter than the sun, deeper than the ocean….”_ she sang, mockingly.

“Honey, the bad boys never turn good,” Lissa said. “Why should they? They get exactly what they want out of life, all the power and everyone at their feet. That’s the way they like it.”

“Yep. It’s only lust anyway. He’s a bit of a jerk, personally. Though oh-so-sad.” Spikey made the chitarra drip tears of music.

“Those sad puppies bite the worst,” called Andala from the food table.

“Yep. Good-looking though. Have another drink,” said Lissa, handing over the bottle. Spikey tucked it into the chair beside her, and launched into some rowdy tunes, good for dancing. Her fingers flew over the strings. Two or three people clapped approvingly in time to the rhythm, and took up the beat with their feet, whirling and stamping. “You’re good,” said Lissa. “I’m glad we gave you the old chitarra to practice on.”

“And I thank you for it,” said Spikey. She bent to her work with a will.


	36. An Entertainment with Snoke

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Because the First Order know how to party. Not.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

This was a particularly grand affair. The heads of a few dozen worlds were there, or their higher ministers, in their elaborate robes. Their adornments of fur, feathers, scales, claws, horns and jewels culled from every menagerie in the Galaxy made it an atavistic scene in some ways. It was one of the most persistent habits of the great and powerful, Kylo thought: appropriating parts of other creatures to make a show of wealth and power. Primitive tribes everywhere did it. And so did the First Order and their supporters.

Though of course the display of crests and frills was strictly limited to people’s attire. The First Order’s human supremacist values utterly dominated this gathering. There was barely a hint of deviation from the standard human norm; even mild variations such as Tholothians or Mirialans were uncommon in the Palace.

At least his costume didn’t flaunt the kind of idiocy on display here, Kylo thought, staring down a planetary dictator whose helmet sported a ridiculous fan of vibrating spines. Feeling childish, he walked around the party snagging canapes (tasty ones, for once) and seeing how many people he could intimidate into stepping out of his way without speaking.

A small message droid floated up to him and requested his presence in the small salon, an adjoining room where Snoke sometimes condescended to appear. There were small eddies of movement in the crowd as a select few gravitated towards the same room. Hux was among them, Kylo saw with no surprise.

The salon was set up so that Snoke would appear to sit at the head of a polished black table, towering over it. He wasn’t there yet, so Kylo took the place nearest the head. Hux sat opposite him with a challenging look. This was what Snoke would want. The dozen or so other guests arranged themselves around the table with a bit of nervous small talk. An ascetic-looking older woman with ceremonial daggers belted across her uniform took a place next to Kylo without looking at him. Probably the only person prepared to do so, since he’d insulted or threatened practically everyone else there at some point in his life.

Snoke’s hologram appeared and greeted everyone with some silky pleasantries about how much their support for the First Order was appreciated. Kylo could see people almost purr with pleasure as he turned his attention on them, no doubt exerting some Force on them to make them believe their contribution to the war effort outshone everyone else’s — and that it merited such rich rewards as Snoke might hold in the future. Of course Kylo could see through it. Snoke didn’t need to use the Force on Kylo that way.

He ignored an uncomfortable thought.

There was activity to report on many fronts, and each person in the room outlined the movements of the First Order and the New Republic and the Resistance within their sphere of influence, whether military, financial or political. Slick spidery waiter droids circulated with small crystal glasses of some fiery liquor, and the company’s boasts and pledges of support became increasingly rash.

Snoke closed with a summary of the war. “For it is indeed _the_ war, although the New Republic refuses to acknowledge it publicly. Meanwhile they are mobilising significant resources,” he continued. “And as a result, the Resistance, which has always been small and under-funded, is getting access to all the credits and materials they require.

“Specifically, they are building new bases, stocked with new ships. Still no capital ships, but that is only a matter of time. There is a well-defended shipyard being commissioned to build large troop-carrying ships for the Resistance as well as more X-wings. This must be stopped, and I have some plans for that which involve Lord Ren and General Hux. The rest of you, thank you all for your attendance here, which is most gratifying. Please go and enjoy yourselves.”

The others filed out leaving Hux and Kylo alone with Snoke’s hologram. Snoke looked between them both, and said, “I am aware of the bad feeling between you. I will be displeased if it leads to any failures on your part. You are here to follow my orders, not to score points against each other.” What a lie, thought Kylo. Snoke loved it when his lieutenants and proteges fought. Hux gave him a weary look, no doubt thinking the same. It was a shame they were at odds, when they understood each other so well, Kylo thought.

“General, you’ll take the Finalizer to the base the Resistance is building and you will obliterate it. You’re taking Kylo along, but he’ll leave you on his own ship once you arrive. Kylo, I’m going to give you a list of targets that I want you to neutralise. I want you to acquire high-ranking Resistance prisoners and interrogate them. There may be other bases being created that our intelligence has not yet detected. I am waiting for reports to come in from a few sources, and once they do, I want you to start your mission. It will be a ten-day or so. Organise with Hux what troops you need to take with you.”

“Master, I would like to advance my plans to have my command shuttle fitted with its own hyperdrive,” Kylo said. “Then the Finalizer does not have to be tied up with my transport requirements.”

Snoke gave Hux a hard look and seemed to detect Hux’s obstructiveness. “I can see the sense in what Ren says. Make it so, and quickly.” Hux bowed his head with a look that would curdle milk.

Snoke dismissed them, and they walked out shoulder to shoulder, neither wanting to follow the other. “Good, I am tired of waiting around here,” offered Kylo, to see if Hux was ready for civil conversation again.

“You certainly haven’t been much use lately,” said Hux nastily.

Apparently not, then.

Hux was swept up in a cadre of back-slapping officers holding drinks. They pressed a glass into Hux’s hand. They must be far gone if they were being that familiar with their General, thought Kylo. One of them bumped up against Kylo and looked up uncertainly, offering up a bottle before realising who it was. Kylo showed his teeth and took it anyway and walked off. Was there anyone here he wanted to talk to?

Surprisingly, there was. Some officers had come in from a unit that he had led in the early days of his combat leadership with the First Order. He had been green, and so were they. But they’d been a steadying influence for him nonetheless: street smart, shrewd, cynical and stoic in the tradition of the best soldiers. He’d learned from them, and maybe due to their youth, they’d accepted his moods and the strangeness the Force brought to his life. They were even proud to be part of his unit, by the end. He was their unpredictable, half-crazy leader and mascot; if they feared him, their enemies feared him far more. They’d known him in battle, and they’d known him without his mask.

They caught sight of him and after a moment’s wary appraisal and an exchange of glances, threw him a salute. Kylo jerked his head to beckon them over, and three of them waded through the crowd towards him.

“We weren’t sure you’d still be speaking to the likes of us,” said Sorgen. He was a short, tough-looking man with a weathered face. “This is quite a gathering, isn’t it?” He clinked a bottle he was holding against Kylo’s. “We’d heard you were here! Let’s take those bottles somewhere and try them out, shall we?

“Sorgen! Deepal! Morse!” Kylo greeted all three of them. “I see you’ve come up in the world.”

“Look, Deepal’s a lieutenant now!” said Sorgen.

“And Morse got a medal,” said Deepal.

“And I just got grey hairs,” said Sorgen, who had, though he’d be no more than thirty. “I’ll tell you why in a minute. These two…..” Sorgen led them off to some seats in a corner. Morse took some glasses off a waiter. “No slugging it out of the bottle like we used to. I have a feeling that wouldn’t do here.”

There was a lot of news to catch up on, though Kylo was content to listen more than speak. His missions for Snoke didn’t bear talking about. They wouldn’t understand his training in the Force, which had sometimes amounted to torture. By tacit agreement, nobody talked about what happened on Starkiller Base either. There’d be nothing but pain if anyone brought that up, and they knew it. It was good talking over old times, and they worked their way through a second bottle as they did so. Kylo asked about their unit, and heard enough to decide that he’d take them along on his next mission. Too bad if Hux had other plans for them.

His old comrades were called away and Kylo sat quietly for a while. A troupe of exotic dancers had set up a noisy entertainment in one corner — not the Palace regulars, for he didn’t see Lissa there. It would have been interesting to hear what Spikey did when she was called to play, he thought. But the imported dancers had their own band.

A few people, mainly women, took advantage of the raucous noise around the dancers to drift back in his direction under the pretext of getting a drink. Or perhaps they weren’t that interested in scantily-clad burlesque acts. More interested in him, to be blunt. He blinked up at them lazily, checking if they were looking for the diamonds on him. They arrived in clouds of perfume and gauze, perched on the arm of his chair, and offered to top up his glass. Nobody was thinking of diamonds. He sifted through the minds around him, delicately, softly. Ambition, anxiety, greed and pride lapped around him in waves. But no thoughts of murder. Towards Kylo anyway, though there were plenty of other people who would probably be very interested to know what the people they were talking to would secretly like to do to them. Interested, but not surprised.

After a while he got tired of people looking him up and down, trying to get a reaction out of him, whether it was with a slow come-on stare or a barbed remark and a false laugh. It was still hard to face crowds for long without his mask. Grabbing a bottle of spirits, he drifted casually towards the door. He fantasised about using his light sabre to clear a path and a little flame of delight ignited in his heart. But instead he used the Force to deflect people’s attention. Nobody tried to stop him going. He felt Snoke would approve of his self-restraint.

He wanted to go outside after the cloying atmosphere of the party. There had been a break in the equinoctal storms and it was a still night with the lingering heat of late summer and the ripe scents of autumn. Kylo wandered the zig-zag paths that connected the walled gardens, occasionally taking a swig out of his bottle. His senses felt light and alert, spreading around him into the night like a net. He heard music coming from the Comfort Wing of the Palace, sweet female voices and a chitarra murmuring an accompaniment underneath. Probably Spikey, he thought. He hadn’t heard her with other people, and curiosity pulled him in that direction, through an unfamiliar part of the gardens.

The party had spilled out onto a balcony on the first floor. He looked up at it from below. It was definitely the comfort girls having a party, and for themselves, by the sound of it. No coquetry, no flirting. Just a lot of high spirits and earthy humour. Friendship. He could see it in their minds. He remembered Spikey’s description of their obsession with handcrafts and smiled. He listened, swigging from his bottle.

 

 

 


	37. Kylo and Spikey Drink Too Much

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> And one thing led to another
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

It was easy enough for Kylo to jump onto one of the walls adjoining that wing of the Palace. One big Force-leap and he was up. He teetered along the tops of the walls that led to the building, nearly tripping over the vines that swarmed over the brickwork. Every time he jumped a gap, he rewarded himself with another drink, smiling into the dark as he did so. He leapt up to the balcony adjoining the room where the party was being held. From there, he could look and listen through a flower-hung trellis that divided the two balconies. He was in the dark, and silent, and the party was lit like a stage for his enjoyment. He relaxed on the balustrade, listening to the laughter and conversation. It was surprising to learn that some of those beautiful women had deep belly-laughs when they were off duty. Somebody in there was telling a story that had half a dozen of them laughing like a peal of festival bells. There was an intense conversation going on immediately opposite where Kylo was sitting; some delicate exploration of somebody else’s problems and how to solve them without anybody losing face. Whoever they were, they were patient and generous.

The lives of insects contain hidden depths, he thought. Philosophy. Who would have thought. This was nothing to do with his life, but it didn’t hurt to observe.

“Come out here, let’s get some air.” That was Lissa’s voice. He knew the throaty catch to it very well, having had it in his ear a few nights before. Spikey appeared dragging a few chairs, then went in again to get the chitarra. A few more women came out and settled around Spikey, who was drumming on the strings of the chitarra: something lively. It grew in speed and volume until a wave of people came out hopping and clapping in time, in and out of the room, faster and faster until everyone collapsed laughing and telling Spikey off for taking it too fast.

She said something and he could hear the smile in her voice, whatever the words were. A question.

“Yes, that one,” said one of the others. Andala? Spikey started something softer and a couple of voices joined in. It was serious music. A little sad. The voices divided up, making harmony.

“You ready?” asked Spikey, and they must have nodded, because she joined in singing something low and strange that rose up, holding discords against the melody. Higher and higher. The other voices wobbled, went off. Laughter. “It’s hard. Let’s try again.” And they did. This time it held together better, with Spikey’s voice rising with a strange intensity that fought the harmony, made it piercingly beautiful by contrast, and finally arrived at an agreement so unexpectedly perfect that it raised the hairs on the back of Kylo’s neck. The singers fell silent, until somebody murmured a few words that broke the spell and they all laughed.

Well, that is one mystery solved, he thought. That dim, stuttering energy he sensed in her mind had turned into a furnace just now. The furnace she used to forge…something. Something he hadn’t encountered before. A power indeed.

He jumped onto the balustrade, swung himself around past the dividing trellis and leapt into the midst of the party. A dozen people started and stared at the sight of him appearing suddenly out of the dark, brandishing a bottle and with his cloak and tunic tails fluttering behind him. The laughter and the talking stopped dead and there was an awkward silence. Nobody moved.

Then Spikey stepped forward and introduced him to everyone. “Everyone, this is Kylo. I’d like you to meet….” She pointed everyone out. He realised she was giving them time to recover from their shock at having an outsider crash their party.

“I brought my own drink,” he said. “Where’s the music?” There was a quick exchange of glances. People’s shoulders dropped slightly. Wearily. Kylo brushed over their thoughts: they weren’t expecting to entertain a client tonight. Now they were being asked to perform, and they didn’t like it.

“A bottle, how delightful!” said Lissa, smiling to cover the changing mood. She brought over some glasses. “Always welcome here.”

“A toast to Delita. Who is getting out of here for good,” said Spikey pointedly. She filled a glass and raised it to a small woman with midnight black skin. Delita gave Spikey a triumphant grin and a thumbs-up.

“I’ll drink to that,” said three or four people. Spikey tossed her drink back in one gulp, and gasped. Kylo laughed and poured her another.

“I’ve never seen you drunk,” he said.

“That will be because of the flogging I’d get if I were caught.”

“Drink it!” he said and pushed it into her hand. She hesitated, locking eyes with him for a moment, and then tossed it back. She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

“It’s pain, but it’s good pain,” said a beautiful young man sitting next to her, slugging back his own drink. He raised the empty glass to Kylo in salute, thanking him.

Kylo leaned over to touch the carved head of the chitarra, which was near him. Spikey scooped it up as though rescuing a baby from certain death.

“I won’t hurt it. I want to hear you play again.”

Warily she arranged it across her lap and started to play. Lissa and her friend Andala came to her side but Spikey waved them off.

“I’ve got this. You two go and party.”

Her fingers wandered from one tune to another without settling, without igniting the glow inside her. Filling in time. Kylo kept topping up her glass.

“I’m too drunk. My fingers are stumbling.”

Just then there was a commotion at the inner door. A messenger had come in looking for Lissa.

“Oh, by all the gods!” said Andala. “Tonight of all nights.” She went into an inner room to look for her.

“Who?” Kylo called across to the messenger. He felt a little coal of rage start up inside him. He already knew.

“None of your business!” said Spikey quickly, slapping him on the knee. “Hey!” She met his furious gaze. “Hey. This is work for them!”

But as Lissa came into the common room, piling her hair up quickly and blotting colour onto her lips, Kylo caught the thought in her mind. Hux. Hux wanted her tonight. Of course.

He surged across the room, throwing people out of the way to get to Lissa.

“You’re NOT going to go to him!” He had Lissa by the arm, holding her tight enough to bruise. She was frozen in place, and he could tell her mind was working overtime to find a way to defuse the situation. Then Spikey skidded into both of them, putting herself between them.

“No, you don’t take it out on her. What’s between you and Hux….you take that up with him! She’s just doing her job!”

“No, it’s OK Spikey, I can handle this…..” said Lissa, trying to push Spikey aside.

Andala came up and said firmly, “Tell Hux Lissa’s already taken tonight. He doesn’t need to know…”

“Oh god, who’s going to go….” groaned one of the other women. There was a quick flicker of eyes, a quick tally of favours owed.

“Probably have to be another blonde, sorry,” said Lissa. A painfully slender and pale woman with golden hair sighed.

“Okay, I’ll do it. See you later. Party hard, everyone.” She went off to get ready for work. Kylo looked at Lissa a moment and then shoved her out of the way, disgust rising in him.

“Well, it’s a lovely night outside I’m sure. Let’s finish that bottle out there, shall we? Party’s nearly over,” said Spikey, oozing fake charm as she grabbed Kylo by the arm.

“That one’s empty,” he muttered. Delita swooped up like a little bright bird and pushed a bottle of some pale-green liquid into Spikey’s hands. Spikey pulled her into a hard hug and kissed her cheeks.

“If I don’t see you again, go well. Go far.”

Kylo allowed himself to be dragged out into the corridor and down to the gardens. For some reason, once they were there, they decided that they must get back to Room 25 without being seen by anyone. The big official party in the ballroom must have come to an end, and plenty of couples were strolling the winding paths or sitting in the shrubbery, and they could hear soft conversation and laughter. Both of them were good at stealth, Kylo from his combat training and Spikey because she had her own occasions to avoid being caught. So they floated softly over the grassy verges, leapt clear over the gravel paths and froze in absolute stillness against the sheltering trees as unsuspecting people walked by. Their bottle made an incriminating but delightful noise as Kylo tipped more of its bright, tangy wine down his throat. Spikey clapped her hand over her mouth to stifle a giggle.

A pair of older men crunched slowly along the gravel towards them, talking gravely of factory shortages and violent reprisals.

“The Mandalorians will never go for it. What’s in it for them, after all? We need troops…”

Kylo elbowed Spikey and gave her the bottle back. She tried with exaggerated care to take a swig without making a noise, but it sounded a liquid “gleep”. He could feel her shaking with silent laughter as the men paused, looked their way and, seeing nothing in the darkness, walked on.

They flitted through the shadows to where a big statue group stood facing a small pool. A woman came panting round the corner from the next garden with somebody in hot pursuit. Kylo grabbed Spikey and they dived under a long bench. Moments later the woman and her pursuer sat on the bench, laughing and out of breath. The man sitting above them was flirting heavily. He sounded a lot older than the woman. Every other sentence he said “M’dear, m’dear, m’dear!” in a funny voice. Kylo couldn’t see Spikey in the utter darkness under the bench, nor could he hear her, but he could feel her whole body shaking with laughter. It was catching. He bit his arm to keep from making a noise.

Finally the couple left. “That was nauseating,” said Spikey.

“M’dear, m’dear, m’dear!” said Kylo, mimicking the man. Spikey heaved with silent laughter. Kylo could feel her along the whole length of his body: one big laugh from head to toe, and he was not much different. He snorted helplessly into her hair, which was coming unbound into a soft cloud.

Suddenly he felt like he couldn’t stand it any more. He slipped hands under her ribs and flipped her over on her back. Twining his hands into her hair, he leaned over her to find her lips with his.

She did not hesitate, but opened her mouth to kiss him back hard. Her arms went around him and she pulled him on to her, and the next moment they were kissing each other desperately, out of breath, still laughing. They started to run their hands over each other’s bodies as though to give each other solidity in the darkness. Her body was small and strongly curved, all springy muscles and fine bones hidden under a glove of softness. Her hands defined the muscles of his shoulders, his ribs, the length of his back, with long, admiring strokes. He slid his hand under her shirt, and she jumped as though electrified and bit him on the ear.

“Why are we doing this here? We’re not teenagers!” she gasped. As of one mind, they commando-rolled to their feet and sprinted silently back to Kylo’s room. The security droid hovering above the garden door jittered nervously at their sudden arrival, spinning threateningly.

“It’s me, droid!” It recognised him and moved out of the way. He scooped Spikey up and vaulted them both with a Force-leap through the open window. Hah, that’s romance! he thought.

She’d seen him naked, she’d undressed him often enough as part of her valet duties. Sometimes there’d been an edge to what they did. That tension she wouldn’t admit, that barrier she put up. How strange now to see her smash through it and reach for him. She tore at the buckles and lacings, and he threw his cloak and tunic and shirt aside.

“Now your turn,” she said, standing in front of him, offering herself. “I’ve done it for you often enough.” He slid one hand around her waist and pulled her shirt over her head, then pulled her close and kissed her while he worked her pants down past her hips. She stepped out of them with a showy ankle-flick that turned into an ungraceful hop.

They made a trail of discarded clothes from the window to the bed, finishing with hers.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Looking for great, sensitive, set-you-on fire smut and erotica? Not here. I highly recommend the fiction of greenfire87/ybasadventure, ms_qualia, hollycomb and southsidestory. Absolute artists with words and feelings.


	38. Kylo and Spikey Get Together

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A slightly sexy interlude
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not super explicit but slightly humorous sex. Like I say, there are other writers who make erotica a fine artform. I'm not adding my tone-deaf voice to their choir.
> 
> * * *

Undressing Spikey is a lot simpler, and a good thing too, he thinks. Neither of them is in a mood to wait. Naked, she’s tiny and deliciously warm to his touch. He runs his hands over her, kneading those firm curves. Impulsive as ever, she jumps onto him so they both tip over and topple onto the bed together, laughing, her arms and legs wrapped around him. He can feel her nipples pressing into him, hard already. He nuzzles down to them and runs his tongue over them, then licks the salt from between her breasts.

“Ugh don’t.”

“Why not?”

“I had to sleep with a man that had a Hutt kink. Too much licking.”

“Sounds quite nice,” he says, once he’s stopped laughing, and runs his tongue up to her throat and then flicks at her lips. All salty. He smiles. She gives him back a lopsided grin, torn between annoyance and desire.

“You can have too much of a good thing,” she says. “Like this!”

She’d been playing with his hair, massaging his scalp and tugging his locks. Now she grabs his head, sticks her tongue in his ear, wriggles it around and slurps. The noise is horrifically magnified. He pulls away in disgust and they stare at each other, eye to eye. Almost laughing.

“Ewwww. That is gross. But somehow fascinating,” he says.

She pulls one of her funny faces. “Don’t be that guy. Please.” Her hand drifts down his flanks, grasps his hipbone, and brushes soft circles in his pubic hair.

This conversation isn’t going to last much longer.

“Have you ever had a lover?” he asks suddenly.

“Ah. No. Or at least, not my own. Other women’s lovers, probably. I don’t want to know about their revolting love lives.” She looks at him, and for a moment a shy, almost pleading look appears on her face, but she forces her features smooth and says quickly, “If you’re asking if I’ve had sex with somebody I want to have sex with then no, I haven’t.”

“Let me fix that for you,” he says, staring at her very directly. His hand has gone down to make matching circles in her pubic hair. She was about to laugh, the skeptic, but she sniffs suddenly, eyes widening. She’s not going to gasp or moan, he thinks. Anything rather than that. But she’s wet already.

“That is kind of a terrible pick up line,” she murmurs, and closes her hand around his cock. “Don’t ever use that as an opener.” She gives him a little squeeze, and he feels himself jerk under her hand. He’s not going to gasp and whimper if she’s not. It’s a contest. He can win.

He eases himself into her, and she’s as delicious inside as out. He relaxes and starts to move in a slow rhythm that she takes up and accelerates with a fierceness that excites him. Small as she is, she’s strong enough to buck and writhe against his weight. He slams into her and comes with a silent shudder; she arches her back and pulls herself against him with a hissing breath of release.

He drifts towards sleep with her in his arms, her head on the pillow next to him. She blinks sleepily at him with a look of dazed wonder that pleases him very much. It was so easy to make her happy. And what harm did it do? She doesn’t know his past, she lives in the moment, and she brings him fully into the present, living as intensely as she does.

She is his little handmaiden to the sensual world, he thinks. First with food, then music, and now sex. The simple things everyone else enjoys. They can be practised as arts — anyone seeing her in the kitchen would know that. And music! Another world, something fierce and moving, beyond the music’s mere caress of the ears. Are these things beneath Snoke’s notice, or does he actively dislike them? he wonders.

As a Knight of Ren, he was a part of the tide of history — and not a small part. Snoke had always made him know that they were captains in a great battle between Dark and Light waged beyond the mundane world of ordinary people. Arbitrators for a world of the Force far above what Spikey or Lissa or even Hux could conceive.

But what harm did it do to dip into the sensual world every now and then for a little refreshment? He looked at Spikey, asleep now with a softness he’d never seen in her face before, and fell asleep with her sweetness tucked against his heart as a shield against his bad dreams.


	39. The Morning After

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Ah, the sensual world of food and sex....
> 
> * * *

Spikey awoke with a hangover. She was drooling into an unexpectedly soft pillow and there was something warm laying a weight across her back. She turned her head cautiously. Kylo was lying asleep next to her with his arm over her. A sense of pleasure bloomed slowly in her at the memory of the night before, warming her from her groin and spreading outwards to her fingers and toes. She yawned and gathered her scattered thoughts. A note of caution sounded in her brain. Sometimes you thought you’d had the best sex ever, and then the next morning you weren’t wanted any more. Last night’s ardent lover would turn out to be hostile or disappointed or ashamed, and if you knew what was good for you, you’d get out the door as quick as you could. So who could tell what Kylo would think when he woke up? He might go into one of his rages. As he’d said himself, he was different to other people.

She rolled out from under his arm with as much stealth as she could manage, but he woke and held her back.

“Did we really have sex?” he asked sleepily, looking at her with a bewildered expression.

“Yes. With each other, too. Weird, huh?” This might not go well, she thought, and got out of the bed with a quick lunge. She went to the bathroom and found some hangover medicine in a cabinet. These rooms were always well-supplied, she knew. She filled two glasses with water and brought them back to the bed, handing the pills and a glass silently to him.

They both swallowed the water and pills. Spikey looked around for her clothes, scattered around her feet. To her surprise, she felt a big hand close on her wrist. Kylo was looking up at her, something soft in his face.

“Stay.”

She lay back down again. He wrapped himself round her, and they both fell asleep again.

They woke again close to midday. The hangover pills had done their work. Spikey stretched until her spine cracked, then ran a cautious hand over Kylo’s chest. He smiled lazily at her, and she took that as encouragement to wind the hairs of his chest around her fingers, and follow their trail down past his navel to where they thickened. He made a sound of pleasure in the back of his throat as she spread her hand there slowly, luxuriously. She pushed his hair back from his face and kissed him.

This was different sex. Languid, amused, all-the-time-in-the-world sex. They made a relaxed tangle of limbs across the bed. They knew each other, yet did not know each other at all. Wanted to find out more. Kylo brushed his fingers across her ribs, up the inside of her thighs, looking for ticklish spots and tickling them and then rubbing them, teasing her. She hadn’t heard that low chuckle of his very much before, but her laughter brought it out of him. Spikey kissed the scar on his face. She wanted to kiss the scar on his hip but he did not want that. Apparently he did not like being reminded it was there.

“Last night….” she started, and couldn’t finish. Just laughed, and he laughed back. It had been absurd.

“Come on,” he said, and pulled her closer. Funny how two bodies could fit together, somehow, no matter what, she thought, and kissed his collarbone.

“I’m starving, how about you?” asked Spikey some time later. One look at Kylo’s face answered her. “I’ll go and make something.” She got dressed and headed out, planning to get supplies from the commissary. She almost bumped into Sara Rem Nata, who was walking towards Room 25. Kylo must have switched to afternoons with her, Spikey thought.

Sara Rem Nata looked at Spikey and she felt the softest brush of Force contact, so subtle that Spikey almost couldn’t be sure she had felt anything at all. But then Sara Rem Nata’s thin face broke into cruel smile.

She knows, thought Spikey. Sara Rem Nata’s smile only widened in response, as though she’d discovered that Spikey was unexpectedly tasty. Spikey bowed her head and scooted past her quickly, feeling chilled to the marrow.

But what could it matter? Nobody cared who servants slept with, and Kylo wasn’t expected to be celibate. He was expected to remain unattached, but all Sara Rem Nata would have seen in Spikey’s mind were her feelings. It only mattered what Kylo thought about it, and presumably she couldn’t read Kylo’s mind as easily. He could protect himself, surely.

And perhaps Sara Rem Nata saw all there was to see. Kylo and Spikey had good times together, and maybe they laughed together more than Snoke would approve of, but in the end it was probably no more than a servant girl’s infatuation.

Damn that woman. With just one scornful look she’d crushed Spikey’s feelings. Spikey sniffed and put her chin up, trying to shake off her unease. Seize the pleasures of the moment, she told herself. It’s better than nothing.

* * *

 

Kylo was drifting in a pleasurable glow of satisfaction when a knock on the door reminded him he was meant to have a session with Sara Rem Nata. She was the last person he wanted to see. He was unshaven, slightly sticky, and feeling fuzzy around the edges. On the other hand, he wasn’t going to feel like seeing her any better tomorrow. He pulled on some pants and opened the door with bad grace, shielding his mind carefully. But it was no use — she must have run into Spikey outside and picked up what had happened. Sara Rem Nata gave him a chilly sneer. Kylo kept his face completely expressionless and followed her outside. “Just a short session,” he said. “I haven’t time.”

He settled into meditation, following Sara Rem Nata’s directions on how to find Rey’s physical location. It didn’t work, as usual. He was aware that he was outstripping Sara Rem Nata’s knowledge in some ways. She didn’t know it yet. He looked at her cold profile through half-closed eyes. No response.

He was suddenly aware that he was not the only one observing. Rey was linking with him.

_Your teacher?_ she thought.

_For some things,_ he thought. He should see if Sara Rem Nata could catch hold of Rey somehow while they were Force-linked. Catch the scent of her. Help him hunt for her. But he said nothing.

_I don’t think I’d tell her anything either,_ thought Rey. _You seem happy all of a sudden,_ she thought abruptly.

_I’m finally getting out of here. Snoke’s sending me on a mission._ He could feel her deciding whether to dig around more for juicy details on Spikey, or follow up on this other news. She chose the latter.

_Oh he took pity on his poor bored child did he? Now you can be happy wiping out some more villages._

At least she was leaving his personal life alone. _I suppose you’ve got some noble plan to stop me?_

_I’m not your mother. Stop yourself. And tell Snoke to stop sniffing around after me all the time. He’ll wear himself out._

_Snoke’s looking for you? That’s my job._ Kylo felt a hot stab of anger in his temples. Sara Rem Nata stirred slightly beside him. No doubt shooting him one of her looks.

_Seems like he’s not trusting you to succeed._ Rey seemed to pick up his gathering rage. _Don’t worry. He’s grabbing at air. He has no idea how to connect with me._ She broke the link with an air of smugness.

Kylo sat absolutely still, forcing down the resentment boiling up inside him. Snoke barely talked to him lately and seemed only marginally interested in what he was doing. But he was “sniffing around” Rey all the time?

He was not going to think about that. He was not going to give in to the feelings inside him. He would not let Sara Rem Nata see any of this!

He opened his eyes a crack. Sara Rem Nata’s profile was serene. Somehow he was learning to shield his thoughts from her. That gave him a savage little spike of triumph amid all the mess of rage he was concealing.

 


	40. Games

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jus' being silly
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo Ren, apprentice Sith Lord and potential Galactic ruler, sat cross-legged on the bed. Spikey, room servant, sat opposite him. 

“Fuck you.”

“Fuck YOU.”

“Well, FUCK you!”

They’d been doing this for fifteen minutes already, with every accent and inflection they could think of. 

“No, this is how Hux would say it,” said Kylo, and hissed “wellfuckyou!”

“Oh, just get fucked.”

“I think you lose points for that. Especially with Hux. He’s a stickler for rules!” 

Suddenly Spikey stopped laughing. She got an odd look on her face and her eyes flicked around the room, looking for something that wasn’t there. “Uhh….”

“What?” asked Kylo.

“I think…..I think somebody else was in my head. Rey. Is that possible?”

“Maybe! I don’t know!” said Kylo, surprised and a little worried. “Did she say anything?”

“No … I mean, she was highly impressed by the quality of our discourse,” said Spikey, with dignity, and then spluttered with laughter. “Ha ha ha! She thought we looked like idiots! She was laughing her head off! If it was her.…”

“Rrrrrah! I’m going to find her right now!” Kylo leaped to his feet, made an agitated circuit of the room, then settled down to concentrate on Force-linking. Spikey watched a moment then left.

_Rey, Rey, what are you doing? Was that you?_

No reply. 

But he’d made Rey laugh. Rey! An absurd hopeful twittering thing rose out of his heart. Rey, laughing!

He was so out of control. He could only hope Snoke would stay busy with whatever Hux was doing, because he didn’t want to been seen in this state. 

He was fucked.


	41. Like a Love Story, Only Not

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Love and liberty
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

They had made love and were sitting now on the bed together. Kylo had been away much of the morning, attending meetings about his mission, and he’d spent the afternoon looking at reports, making notes and sending out queries. He wouldn’t talk about it. His time at the Palace must be drawing to a close, though. Spikey felt it, saw it in the way he alternated between restlessness and melancholy. Right now he was leaning against the wall, looking tired. His shoulders were rounded and his head a little bowed, staring at his knees. This relationship would have to end anyway, Spikey thought. She’d always be the one trying to keep him happy. It’d suck the life out of her.

But he was so beautiful. A young god, a ruined god, a god of the underworld, with his pale skin and brooding eyes. Sitting there naked, impossibly long limbs outstretched. Spikey leaned forward and fixed a lock of hair out of his face, traced the line of his brow. His eyebrows peaked up and she wanted to smooth them down. He looked up, puzzled and a little sad. Searching her face as though wondering why she bothered, or what she was doing there. 

“You'd be a sculptor’s dream, you know.” She ran a hand down his legs, needing to confirm that yes, they really were that long, and that finely modelled.

She became aware of that strange doubled vision. Someone in her head. Rey. 

She knew _why_ Rey was there, too. 

_Enjoying the view?_ she thought. Rey’s presence gave a little mental jerk. She seemed caught off-guard. _Yes I can feel you. I’ve been around the Force a lot,_ Spikey thought. _Now get out of my head._ The thought that Rey might have been in her head, say, half an hour ago was appallingly embarrassing. She sensed confusion from Rey.

_Do you know the kind of monster he is?_

Spikey had no answer for her. Yes, no, she didn’t know, she didn’t want to know. It was complicated. 

Rey seemed to consider that, then accepting it, withdrew from Spikey’s mind. Spikey was left with an odd feeling, as though she’d been bathed in sunlight. There was a directness about Rey. She was calm. She made a deep impression on Spikey, though she could not say exactly why.

Kylo interrupted her thoughts. 

“I was thinking of holding a small gathering here. For the officers who’ll be part of the team that’s going to work with me.”

Spikey wondered if he noticed her blank look, for it took her a moment to push thoughts of Rey aside. 

“I believe that’s what they call a team-building exercise in certain circles,” she replied at last, reaching for humour in self-defence. “This must be the _new_ First Order? I hadn’t heard about that yet.”

Kylo nodded and gave a sour laugh. “You think the _new_ Kylo Ren does team-building exercises. Instead of assuming my troops will follow me if they know what’s good for them. No, I actually just want to have a drink with some people I have worked with before who I know won’t annoy me.”

“Do you want Lissa and some of the girls to entertain?” As Spikey said it, it seemed like the right and appropriate thing to do. She sensed their time together was nearly over; it deserved to be marked by some event. Kylo brooded over the idea for a while and agreed. 

* * *

About twenty people came to Kylo’s rooms the next day. She caught the names of three who seemed to know him well: Sorgen, Deepal and Morse. The rest seemed less at ease with him. Spikey gathered that partying with Kylo hadn’t been much of a thing on the Finalizer. They didn’t know what to expect. It had been a rather loose invitation, and there were one or two people who she’d also seen at some of Hux’s parties. Unaligned, or simply curious.

Spikey stayed in the background, keeping the food and drink flowing. She’d been able to commandeer help to prepare quite a feast. The partygoers fell on her cooking with cries of joy, and Kylo got so many compliments on the food that Spikey was starting to roll her eyes at Lissa, who was tuning the chitarra by the window. 

“You’d think he’d stayed up all night personally beating the eggs!” she hissed out of the corner of her mouth. That image gave Lissa the giggles. She had to pass it off as a flirtatious gesture to one of the men. Spikey got out of the way before she caused more trouble. More alcohol, yes, she thought, and went to get it.

The comfort girls started their routine of singing and dancing. They seemed a little tired too. After Lissa had stumbled over a few notes, she lifted her chin towards Spikey, inviting her to take over on the chitarra. Spikey had intended to fly under the sensors tonight, but she couldn’t turn Lissa down. She picked up the instrument and the girls resumed with a bawdy tune. 

“Lovely looking girls, but of course one misses the culture of the core worlds,” drawled a man propped on the windowsill next to Spikey. He was talking to one of Beran’s friends, who sniggered in agreement. The two had been pissing and moaning about how dull and backward the Palace was for the past ten minutes. The fact that they were talking right next to Spikey and the girls as though they were so many indoor plants made Spikey furious. 

“I can’t wait to get back to Regella. The theatres there have been doing some classic stuff this season. This war can’t end soon enough if you ask me…”

“The chitarra player’s not a bad little strummer though,” said the friend of Beran. “Actually quite good.”

“All right if you want to hear some of the latest love songs, but I doubt we’ll hear anything by La-Abadrim here,” replied the other. 

Andala had heard them too. She flashed the men a sweet smile and called over to Spikey, “I think we have a request for some La-Abadrim. You know one or two of hers, don’t you?”

Spikey ripped up and down the strings loudly and finished with a knocking rhythm on the wood that silenced the people around them. 

“I will do a love song.” she stared straight at the insulting man. “By La-Abadrim.”

* * *

Kylo had been in a huddle with Deepal and Sorgen for much of the evening. He looked up at the knock on the chitarra and the silence that followed, and saw that Spikey had taken over on the instrument. She was staring up at one of the men with that challenging look of hers. The man looked unimpressed. 

She dropped her head, and dropped her hands onto the chitarra. Immediately the deep strings tolled like bells. The skeptical listener’s eyes widened slightly. He evidently knew this piece, and didn’t expect it. The top strings came in fast and brief, a quick flowering, there and gone. Then Spikey started to sing. Her voice was warm honey and crushed diamonds. The chitarra tolled a mesmerising rhythm beneath it, drawing in every ear in the room. Kylo realised that he was finally seeing that furnace in her mind open up all the way. It was the forge of thought, the forge of the heart. Her bird-mind finally brought into one flock that turned in unison, wings catching the light all at once. 

At one point in the song, she looked up at the man who’d doubted her. He met her eyes with the look of a starving man. Kylo felt the electricity leap between them. 

That is a man who has fallen in love with her voice, and will fall in love with her, he thought. I don’t understand it, he thought. He didn’t understand himself either. Normal people can feel two opposite feelings at the same time, she’d told him once. He could have about ten feelings at once, he thought sourly. But he wasn’t sure what any of these ones were, only that he wasn’t supposed to have them.

Staring straight into the other man’s eyes, Spikey soared up into high notes as pure and strong as the best tempered steel. She finished, and there was silence.

“Fariolana,” murmured the man seriously. An homage of some kind. She gave him a look of triumph. Somebody started clapping. A storm of clapping. 

After everyone had gone, Kylo had Spikey run a bath. He lay in it while she cleaned up the plates and glasses, loading them on a carrier bot to take back to the kitchen. He thought about what he had seen that evening. Spikey deserved to be freed. She was meant to sing in public, to become famous for her voice. 

The Force adhered to symbols, he knew. That was why he carried Vader’s helmet with him. It had a talismanic value, able to concentrate the Dark Force in him. That was no doubt the reason why Snoke probably lived somewhere other than his own enjoyably luxurious Palace. He would be in some old Sith stronghold somewhere, on some near-uninhabitable planet made vicious by an overgrowth of the Dark Side. The talismanic power of such places conferred great strength.

Certain acts were symbolic. To fall in love was a powerful thing, for instance. Snoke was not going to be pleased about Kylo’s feelings for either Rey or Spikey, and he would do his best to conceal them. But love was ambiguous, a servant of Chaos, which the Dark also served. Love was not always redemptive, not always generous. It was sometimes destructive, wild and unprincipled. On countless planets, she was worshipped as a goddess with two aspects, holding both the firebolt and the sign of peace.

But freedom…Freedom was a huge thing, and it only worked in one direction: towards the good. There was no particle of self-interest in it. Freeing Spikey could only spring from compassion and from a sense of justice. He could not do it, he could not even _think_ of doing it, he could not even order _somebody else_ to do it, without setting up a tremendous challenge to the Dark Side. Un-enslaving somebody was a talismanic act so powerful that he doubted he could hide the weight of it from Snoke.

From where he lay in the bath he could just see, through the open door, Vader’s helmet in the bedroom. No answers there, he thought. 

Vader had been born a slave, said a little voice in his head. Something was owed.


	42. End of the Golden Weather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You knew, right? Things are never that easy.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

On the seventh day he confirmed what Spikey already knew.

They were lying in bed together, holding each other. There was tension in him that she couldn’t smooth away, in fact he seemed to twist away from her hands. Something was wrong.

“Spikey, I have to go soon.”

She froze, feeling a cold jolt run through her. Reality, making its unwelcome return. When her throat could unlock, she asked, “When? How long for?”

“In a week or two. Snoke is sending me away on a mission. I don’t know how long it will take.” His voice said, _a long time._

Spikey lay absolutely still. Very slowly, carefully, she began the task of unzipping her mind and her heart. It was going to hurt, hurt unbelievably. There was no point in delaying it. The pain would come anyway, and she would never be whole again. Her eyes brimmed with tears.

“Don’t cry,” said Kylo. She looked up at him. His face had a closed-off look, with his full lips pursed and turned down at the corners. He was turning away from her. Hating himself, and hating the feelings she was going to drag him through.

“I _won’t_ cry! At least, not in front of you!” She jabbed him in the chest with a finger. “I have known….I have _always_ known…that this is not going to last! You will go out into space to do what you’re meant to do, looking for Rey and killing and things that I hate and do not want to know about. And I will go back to doing what I was doing before!” She was fierce. He would not turn away from fierceness. She dashed the tears angrily from her eyes. “There, see? Gone.” She sat up and took his hand, holding it hard in both of hers.

“I’ve _always_ known this is not real. _This_ is not ‘the love that outlasts the ages’. The eternal stars will not, as the poets say, ‘shine down on our blesséd union’. You will never share with me your memories of your childhood or your hopes for the future.” She had to wipe her nose and eyes then, because that truth hurt, but still she continued. “But listen! We will not be together long enough to get tired of each other, either. You will never get sick of hearing my jokes for a second time. I will never grow to hate the sound of you clearing your throat. We’ll never disappoint each other.”

He gave her a lost look, his eyebrows peaked up over his beautiful, sad eyes. “We’ll never disappoint each other,” he repeated dully, his voice catching. She must have hit a nerve. She covered her eyes so he couldn’t see that she was crying after all. “Stop it!” he said.

“I will! Only it hurts so much. I have to cut my mind and my heart apart, and bury one.”

_“Don’t tell me how much that hurts! I’ve had to do it for years!”_ he said passionately.

She would never know what he’d done to hurt himself so much, she thought. She hated that truth too. She jumped out of bed and paced around the room, forcing herself to think, to find the words. Finally she flung herself back onto the bed, kneeling across him and holding his face between her hands.

“Listen, I’ll tell you how it will be. How we will _make_ it be. It will be like one perfect day in a shitty winter of storms. We can’t control the weather, but we can make the most of the day. It will be like the moment when you dive underwater and everything is magical and beautiful, and you believe you can live weightlessly in the blue forever, even though you know you need to come up for air eventually. It will be like the fruit you pick ripe off the tree, which cannot even last out the day, so you must consume it all, all at once! And the juice is so, so sweet!”

He pulled her down to him, stroking her face tenderly. His face utterly naked and open. She kissed him, softly again and again. “We will not be afraid,” she said. He repeated it, looking into her eyes, and gathered her into his arms. Their lovemaking this time was almost spiritual; an homage to the power of love itself. The goddess, great and terrible and splendid, in the room with them. Who did not care whether they lived or died, so long as they adored her.

Afterwards he whispered, “If Snoke knew…” and shuddered. She saw he was afraid, could see a cringing look in his face that she hated. If Snoke knew what? she wondered.

“I’m just a servant girl, to him. What would he care what we do together?” she murmured reassuringly. Though pride flared in her heart, disagreeing. Only a serving girl, yet she’d danced with the lightning and survived, day after day, ever since she’d met Kylo, the angry man with hands and eyes full of death.

He was the magnificent beast she had fed and healed. Soon to return to the wilderness from which he had come.

Things would come to an end in any case. She knew this, even as she went about her business around the Palace, with her hips swinging to a new music, the music of love. She saw the end when Kylo sat for hours entranced, looking for Rey. In contact with Rey, now. He laughed once, in the middle of his meditations. When she asked what was funny, he replied, “Just something Rey said”. Spikey felt a spear to her heart. She knew, she had always known, how Kylo felt about Rey. She’d known it before he did, when he still thought he hated everything. She’d seen his longing for an equal. The sun-girl, tall and brave, who had twice slipped out of his grasp. Like a fairy tale, she thought. He must have her, and will never stop pursuing her. Third time’s the charm.

She wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Would he destroy her? Would she break him? Spikey liked to imagine Rey as the refiner’s fire, something that could finally burn all the darkness out of Kylo. A task that was entirely beyond Spikey’s power. She could see the good in that outcome, for Kylo if not for herself.

Snoke wanted to use Rey, Kylo wanted to possess Rey. What did Rey, the mysterious Rey, want for herself? If Kylo and Rey met, how long would she be immune to his beauty and power? Or would Kylo screw things up for himself, trying to tread some impossible path between his fear of Snoke and his desire for her?

These questions kept her awake at night, yet she sang as she worked, and her heart danced whenever Kylo smiled at her. She made him laugh, she made him laugh! Happiness, her spine fluid with love, her hands soft with it, her feet weightless with it. Happiness in his eyes too, those long dark eyes crinkling at the corners with a smile.

She visited Lissa and Andala, who saw at once what had happened.  
 “Oh dear, I’ll make you some tea,” said Andala. Lissa pulled her down on the couch next to her and put her arms around her.

“Love hurts doesn’t it? You’re going to be okay though Spikey. You will.”

Serilla looked up from where she was composing a long message on a pad. “Is this with Kylo Ren? I thought you hated him. He was shitty to you.”

“No, they made up,” said Lissa.

“And now he’s going away really soon. Snoke’s orders.” Spikey started to cry, huge heaving sobs that she would never allow herself around Kylo. “But it’s not that. I mean, I knew. He’s going to be a ruler of the Galaxy and I’ll be polishing floors till the end of time. No, it’s because…I think I’m broken. It doesn’t matter if he comes back again, I’m broken.”

“What do you mean?” asked Lissa.

“Before, it didn’t matter what people did. I could take them or leave them, they didn’t really hurt me inside. I was still me.

“But now…if another man touches me, I don’t think I will be able to stand it. I’ll want to kill that man, I will try to… From now on it will feel like rape, and I will feel like a slave. I have made myself a slave. I never was before, in my heart.”

She cried on until Andala brought in the tea and almost forced it down her throat. “There, there, drink this, you’ll feel better…”

Spikey snivelled and tried to drink. It did stop her crying a bit. Swallowing tea stopped her throat from its convulsive gasping. Andala put a hand on her shoulder.

“You’ve still got music. There’s something really there in you. You can use it. Somehow. You’ll pull through.”

“You’re more than just some lord’s cast-off,” said Serilla from her corner. Tactless as a slap, but also true. Spikey swallowed a fresh round of sobbing and clenched her teeth.

“There’s been a few times when I thought I couldn’t stand it any more, and I danced,” Lissa said. “Danced it out. All the anger, all the frustration. Everyone thought they were seeing a great performance. The performance of a lifetime! But I was just….” Lissa did an odd little shiver of her body, and the look that flashed from her eyes was one that none of her clients would have imagined possible. She would have made a fearsome queen, thought Spikey sadly.

Still. Never give up. A thought struck her.

“When Delita got her freedom….how was it done?” she asked.

“Manumission papers. They have to be signed and paid for. She got the money together from gifts her clients gave her, and her fiancé paid for some,” said Lissa.

Manumission. What a big, shining word. Too heavy for Spikey’s tongue.

“And getting off-planet? How does that happen?” she asked.

“You need a security clearance I think. From somebody like Hork. To get on the shuttle,” said Serilla, who generally knew how things worked.

“What are you thinking?” asked Lissa. “Would Kylo free you?”

“I’m just thinking. He says he can’t. That I belong to Snoke, not him. But if there’s a one in a thousand chance that somehow….” Spikey trailed off miserably.

Serilla knitted her fine brows. “That’s bullshit!” she hissed. “Permission doesn’t come from that high up. Match can do it for bondservants in the East Wing, or Tar-Shan in the West Wing.”

“Kylo wouldn’t know how to free you!” Lissa said. “I bet he’s never thought about it. Tell him, if you think there’s any chance he’ll do it. Match isn’t going to stop him.”

“I think there’s another problem,” Spikey said. “He’s afraid of what Snoke will do. Snoke will not tolerate Kylo having any kind of attachment to anyone except him. For as long as I’m here, I’m just an entertainment. Part of Kylo’s rest and recreation. Freeing me and getting me off-planet would cross some sort of line. It’d be symbolic of something. That Kylo could care about somebody else’s well-being. Snoke would probably order Kylo to execute me just to teach him a lesson.”

There was a brief silence as they thought it over.

“Why would Snoke even know?” asked Lissa.

“Because helping people is a Light thing to do. Giving somebody their freedom is….really big. Snoke can read Kylo’s mind, and he’d see it. He’d see the betrayal.”

“You’d be off planet though.”

“Not fast enough. Or if I got away, there’d be a price on my head for the rest of my life.”

“For what?” asked Lissa.

“For making Kylo imagine he could have anything of his own? For distracting him from being a servant to the Dark? I don’t know. But it matters a lot to Snoke.”

“What does Kylo think of Snoke?” asked Andala.

“He loves him and fears him and hates him and worships him and craves his approval. It’s beyond me to understand. I’ve never seen anything like it, and I never hope to again,” said Spikey sadly.

 


	43. The Bad Thing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Unwelcome truths
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

And then it ended, sooner and harder than either of them could have predicted.

Kylo was having a nightmare. Again he faced his father on the bridge. Again and again he made the decision, thrust the lightsaber in. The moment kept cycling back, as though the next time he might decide differently, but each time he killed Han, and each time he knew it was a mistake as soon as he’d done it. His soul seemed to leap out of him as his father fell. To leap out, pleading for the Dark to take him. _There, I’ve done it. Take me. Take all of me. I’m yours!_

And the Dark never took him. No rush of power came to buoy him up, to raise him up into his rightful place. He was lord of no dominion. Instead he fell, fell, fell. Fell with his father, who he could not catch or bring back. Fell into the whirling dream, where he could not find him, or the Dark, or anything.

And then he was on the bridge again.

“Come back,” his father said. But again they fell.

Finally, thrashing and turning in bed, trying to avoid his fate, he woke Spikey, who woke him in turn, as she had often done before. Not gently this time. He’d put his hands around her throat, and she’d had to slap him awake. They stared wildly into each other’s eyes, both panicked for different reasons. Usually she said something like, “It’s okay, it’s only a dream”. But this time she just lay there and rubbed her throat.

And then suddenly Rey was there in his head. Or had been, for some time. He was confused. Shouldn’t she be up on the balcony above? Was Chewbacca there? He was aware of Spikey, warm and breathing next to him, her face inches away. But Rey was right inside his head, bright and insistent, throwing open doors in his mind one after another. Cockroach memories scuttled to avoid the light. A sickening sensation.

Yet Rey stood fast, holding open those doors. He didn’t know how she could do that, with all the disgusting filth that was in his mind. After he’d killed, after he’d tortured, after he’d ordered an execution, he never, never looked at those memories again. Sometimes they surfaced, and he screamed and struck out and tried to bury them in his own anger and violence. But now Rey just stood inside his mind and watched, shielding herself from nothing.

_Why did you do it? Why did you kill Han?_

_I had to. It was the only way._

_The only way to what?_

_To be safe. I could only be safe if the Dark gave me all its power. Only the Dark could protect me._ Ashamed, he curled himself into an ungainly ball in the centre of the bed.

_I bet that’s what Snoke told you._

_Snoke was trying to protect me! Always! He knew what I was going through! But he realised even he couldn’t do it. I needed to have all the Dark on my side. He told me what to do. I had to make a sacrifice. Sacrifice everything._

_He protected you from what?_

_The fear…_

_What fear?_

_The fear…the dream. The whirling dream….the dreams the Force gives…_

Rey seemed puzzled. _The Force almost never gave me dreams like that, she thought. Just the one…the island. And the one I had on Takodana._

_YOU DON’T KNOW HOW LUCKY YOU ARE! All my dreams were like that. I dreamed I killed him a thousand times before I did it, and I’ve dreamed it again ever since._

Kylo realised he was shouting aloud. Spikey had got up in alarm and was sitting hunched up on a chair under the reading light. He must seem possessed to her. She mouthed “Rey?” and he managed to nod. Rey was filling his head.

_So Snoke was wrong! What else was he wrong about?_ Rey’s thoughts were a shout too.

_He was trying his best. Nobody else even tried. Not Luke, not my mother, not anyone. They didn’t know anything that could take away the fear_. He had his hands over his eyes, nails digging into his forehead.

_Why was Snoke so interested in you? Do you think he did it out of kindness?_

Kylo had to believe he did. He’d seen that wise, benevolent gaze bent on him so many times, filling him with the only hope of relief. Filling him with courage, when his own courage ran out. Rey reacted with a disgust he could feel over the link.

_Can’t you see how useful you are to him?_

_Yes of course! He’s never lied to me about that. But we both want to be able to unlock the powers I’m capable of._

_Why?_ She was looking into his past now, asking and asking.

_I’d help him. He said he would need my help. If we were ever to put the Galaxy in order. He’d need me to help protect it._

_That’s not the Sith way. It will always end in a fight to the death between the Master and his apprentice,_ she thought.

_It doesn’t have to be that way. Snoke makes his own rules_. And if he died, if Snoke killed him, at least Kylo Ren would die in the service of an ancient tradition. That tradition had its own nobility, no matter how twisted it seemed to outsiders. Only the strongest deserved to survive, and in the contest came the excellence of a blade sharpened to the finest pitch against the whetstone of power. The indisputable excellence of conquest.

Rey seemed to catch the whole thought, and rejected it. She was a pragmatist, grounded in the realities of being human. _What are you, a child? To believe that?_ she thought.

No, she was a child, he thought. She knew nothing. Had seen nothing in her nothing-life of desert nothingness. Yet there she stood in his mind, crowned in light. How had she ever earned that power? So fearless!

_That’s not true_ , she thought. She showed him her fears. How she would suffer if any of her friends died or were hurt. How she loved them, fiercely and without quarter. She was so vulnerable it was impossible for him to fathom. How could she stand it?

_The world is so big, because I fill it with this_ , she said. _All these things make my world bigger, and they make the world mine. All the love, all the fear, all the sadness, all the joy. Much more than I could ever have imagined. Time and war could take everything and everyone from me, and yet in the end, my heart will only be enlarged._

Unbearably bright. He couldn’t look.

_You are so small,_ Rey thought. _Snoke said you could rule the world. And you made yourself a tiny box to live in._

She seemed sad. He felt the dry, crackling electricity of her withdrawing from his mind. She was gone.

Something started up in his belly, some hot, writhing thing that forced itself up past his lungs, something that took over his throat and wracked his shoulders. He was sobbing. Crying like an abandoned child, shoulders shaking, throat convulsed. He could not stop it, could not control it. He was utterly lost.

And where was his lover, his faithful helpmeet, his kind and sympathetic little friend Spikey? Would she come and put an arm around his shoulders and offer some morsel of comfort? Tiny as it might be, it would be something at least in the face of the pain he felt, because he surely couldn’t face it on his own. He pulled his face out from the pillow where he’d buried it and looked blurrily at her.

She was looking at him with pure poison in her eyes. Her funny, theatrical face had become strange: a mask of hatred.

“You did _WHAT?!”_ she yelled suddenly. _“You killed your father? You made him a SACRIFICE?”_

She resumed a mask-like stillness. Perhaps listening to Rey’s voice inside her head. She was staring wrathfully towards the end of the bed where Vader’s helmet still rested.

“So that’s the price you pay for your Dark powers. You sacrifice someone you love,” she said, wonderingly. A great shudder shook her body, and she whispered, “I know why my sister killed herself.” She gave Kylo a burning look. “She would have had to choose me.”

She started pulling on her clothes in a frenzy, then ran out through the garden door.

Kylo got dressed, stopping to wipe away the tears that wouldn’t stop coming. Dully he followed Spikey out into the night. No sign of Rey’s presence. He didn’t know what he was doing. None of the moons were up, and in the near-total darkness he let his feet take him anywhere along the mazy paths of the Palace gardens.

Something was disturbing the howler swans, and his feet took him to their lake. He could sense Spikey more than see her standing on the end of the dock. Whether she knew he was there, he didn’t know. There was a heavy splash. He walked out to the end of the dock. It seemed a long time before he heard something break the surface a long way out. Rhythmic strokes, heading towards the island in the middle of the lake.

Well, so she didn’t want company. Fine. He didn’t want to explain anything to her. In fact he had no idea why he was standing here. He didn’t have anywhere else to go, so he sat on the cold marble. Tears kept dribbling down his face. He had no idea so much crying was possible. So much snot. He could see the appeal of having a cybernetic body, like General Grievous. This was just disgusting, but he couldn’t make it stop.

The howler swans started up their mournful racket on the island and Spikey answered them, her voice rising to an unbearable pitch of rage and grief. Kylo listened to the terrible keening cries and buried his face in his hands.

He remained there until the sun rose, but Spikey never came back.

And Rey, where was Rey? Better if she’d killed him when she had the chance, back on that snowy forest. Some instinct had urged her to keep him alive for this exquisite revenge. It was not simply seeing his guide and mentor, Snoke, as she saw him, but being forced to drink in her beliefs like a poison.

And the Force? It pounded down around him, more powerful than ever, as though he stood under a waterfall that drenched him and made him stagger. He just didn’t seem to have a way to catch hold of it any more.

 

 

 


	44. Reassignments

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After Rey lobbed that bombshell, Spikey and Kylo don't want to have anything to do with each other
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

It was early afternoon before Spikey came into her quarters, frozen and gritty-eyed. Her ancient comm unit was flashing. It said she was to report to Vole in the kitchen. She assumed Kylo had missed his breakfast and made a complaint. Well, who cares what punishment Vole has in mind, she thought. I don’t care if I die, just so long as I don’t have to see that evil creature again. Then she doubled over with new pain and new tears. Her sister had taken her own life rather than be forced to take Spikey’s. Spikey’s life was not hers to throw away. Somebody had to live on to remember her. To honour what she had done. No matter how much it hurt.

She changed into dry clothes and shuffled wearily into the big East Wing kitchen. Vole called her into his office, where he sat behind his filthy desk and stared her up and down for some time. His expression was hard to read.

“I must say you surprised me,” he said at last. There was some grudging respect in his voice, she decided. “You almost lasted up till the end. I wonder how you did it? I thought Kylo would kill you before the first ten-day was out.”

His eyes raked her up and down. Spikey knew she looked puffy-eyed and bedraggled. Well, let him wonder about the mystery of her rathtar-handling powers. She didn’t feel like speaking.

“Well. He’s requested a different room servant. Letalia will finish out the assignment. Tell her anything she needs to know, will you?”

Spikey nodded, though she doubted she had any good advice about dealing with Kylo. She sure as sarlacc shit wasn’t sharing any cooking tips. Vole pointed out the office door towards the big cleaning store room.

“Get yourself a bucket and mop and dusters. I want every corridor cleaned between here and the Throne Room this week.”

Well at least she wasn’t being reassigned to serve another person, thought Spikey. She’d probably murder them. Vole’s voice followed her out the door.

“Match will be disappointed. He bet me that you would last the whole assignment. He was so close to winning, I was getting worried. Hah! Only a week or two before Kylo Ren goes off planet, and you failed…”

Only a week or two. Her heart jumped uselessly in her chest at the news.

“Do you still collect if I don’t die?” Spikey asked, trying to distract herself.

“That’s something I’ll have to argue with Match,” said Vole, sounding almost friendly. Well, best not to make too much of that. She had seen him humiliated in front of Kylo, after all, and he’d be wanting his revenge some time.

* * *

 

Two days passed. Two days of shoving a mop along the marble hallways and polishing the endless skirtings and windowsills. The boredom was exactly what she needed. Her hands and feet moved mechanically while bitter thoughts churned in her head, endlessly repeated.

She still didn’t understand how she’d seen what she’d seen. It was as though she had been inside Kylo’s dream for a moment. Seen and heard and felt him kill his father. It was unbearable. The look on that man’s face, so full of love, and still Kylo had thrust in the lightsabre. Then she was awake, and Kylo was choking her, and then he was shouting something about sacrifice, and then Rey was in her head, showing her the same story. Somehow the Force had opened the door both ways, so Spikey could look into Kylo the way he could look into her. But asleep! Had Rey done that to them?

She had let that murderer touch her. She’d made love to a vile psychopath. She’d laid down every weapon in her rebellious heart and allowed herself to be doubly enslaved, a love-sick follower trailing hopefully after the hem of his black cloak. Well, there was no point hating herself, in her vulnerable position. Reserve all the hate for him, who had all the power, and would stop at nothing to have more. Like all the bloody wannabe Siths.

She pushed shut a set of heavy doors near the banquet hall in order to clean behind them. Something caught her eye. A small thing glinting in the angle between the wall and the floor. She bent closer to see better.

Diamonds. The diamond ear-cuffs Kylo had worn to the dinner a few weeks ago. Or had not worn. They’d been thrown here, to lie forgotten behind the door. She picked them up curiously. Memories of that evening came back in a rush. Lissa’s party, of course, and Kylo arriving late and drunk, and the heady rush of them coming together as lovers after that. But most of all she remembered the moment when she’d put these earrings on him, and he’d nearly kissed her, but instead they had leaned their heads to touch noses and stand together for a moment, not moving. “Neither of us is really free,” she’d said.

She held the ear-cuffs up to the light. Pretty things. Who had sent them? They’d never found out. Looking closely at them now, she noticed something strange. The polished silver clasps were marred by a black substance on the points that were meant to grip the back of the ear.

Spikey stood motionless for a minute, the ear-cuffs resting in the palm of one hand. Then she started back to her own quarters at a trot, still holding them. Once there she laid them down on the bench and pulled out her own poison assayer. She had begged the vet for a second one so she could check food in her own quarters as well as being able to do it in Kylo’s.

She toggled it on and it extruded the assay needle. She rubbed the ear-cuff clasps against it and the device pinged immediately, flashing a red light. She looked at the readout. A potent neurotoxin.

Spikey thought it over. The jewellery had been harmless when she and Kylo tried it on. Perhaps there was a timer, set to release the poison only after the receiver had had time to check it for poison? It was impossible to tell whether such tiny things contained some clever internal workings. But such things could certainly exist.

That meant that the assassin had never left the Palace. When the first poisoning attempt failed, they had not fled. They had watched and waited for another opportunity. Perhaps they were still here. Oh, how Spikey would love to find that person now!

* * *

 As Spikey came into the kitchens an hour later, Letalia was being stretchered out. Vole was rubbing his hands in delight.

“You’re back with Kylo. Letalia couldn’t hack it.”

“I’m sure he doesn’t want me setting foot in his rooms again,” said Spikey, heart sinking.

“Probably not. He’s in a terrible mood. I may yet win my bet!”

Spikey looked at the clock. Time to make dinner. She trudged miserably back to her room to see what there was to cook with.

Serving it was not as bad as she feared. Kylo was lying in bed with his face to the wall, and it was unclear whether he even realised it was her. The room was a wreck, with burned and splintered furniture upturned everywhere. She ignored it, placing the food on an undamaged shelf and backing out silently.

Back in her room, she was slightly heartened to find a message droid waiting with an invitation to play at the Hux apartments that evening.


	45. Kylo and Rey

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uncomfortable conversations

There was a briefing that morning to finalise details around the next attacks on the Resistance. Kylo got as far as changing his clothes before realising he wasn’t going to be able to face it. His vision was strobing from lack of sleep and he’d given no thought whatsoever to the coming raid. He doubted he would be able to control his hatred of everyone and everything for more than a few minutes.

His room was a mess. Tumbled bedclothes were everywhere, drenched with the smell of Spikey and the spices she cooked with. The rat. She’d run out on him just when he needed her. He sent a message to Vole to have a different servant assigned to him. Spikey could snivel on her island all she liked. He was done with friendship and the utterly useless pain it caused. Snoke was right.

The borrowed lightsaber was sitting on the briefing papers as a paperweight. It made perfect sense to reduce the papers to char, and the table as well for good measure. When a drone appeared at his window, looking for him, he gave it the same treatment. The drone was followed at intervals by two droids requesting his presence at the briefing. He smashed them, sparks flying all over the room.

Hacking at things released some of the tension in his shoulders, but also reminded him how much he hated that lightsaber. He needed to finish his own lightsaber properly. It would give him something he could hold onto against the misery he felt. A weapon against misery, even.

Well, but that should be a task for tomorrow, much as he longed to start immediately. Right now he didn’t have the necessary focus. Meanwhile, what he desperately needed was to get away from the Palace for a while. He wanted space and speed and silence, and the wind in his face. He knew there were landspeeders parked by the Palace entryway for people going to the shuttleport or out to the lands beyond.

He briefly debated with himself about asking for an audience with Snoke first. He needed help with keeping Rey out of his head. But he was fairly sure now that this whole project, the hunt for Rey, was another one of Snoke’s tests. Or even just a useless diversion. It seemed clear that Snoke wanted Kylo to show that he could handle this himself. Asking him for advice now would look weak, and Snoke must surely be running out of patience with Kylo’s weaknesses. Which were many. If he met with Snoke now, Snoke would find out he’d spent all night crying like a baby.

Kylo grabbed his own scalp and clenched his fingers into his hair until it hurt. Then he reached for Vader’s helmet and tucked it under his arm. He schooled a hard, gimlet-eyed expression onto his face. It lasted him all the way down to the lowest level of the Palace where the massive front doors faced the road to the shuttleport. A row of landspeeders were parked just outside. He picked the newest-looking one and set off across the Palace farmlands towards the distant wooded hills.

The speed brought tears to his eyes. Astonishing he had any of those left, he thought. Moofs tossed their heads up in alarm at his approach, and formed into herds that thundered away. Droid labourers beeped anxiously as he passed over their hypnotically-straight crop rows and windbreaks.

The forested hills, when he reached them, were something of a disappointment. The planet’s constant winds evidently kept the trees down, so they formed a scrubby, tightly-knit low blanket. He could force the landspeeder through them only by leaning forward and scything the lightsaber through the myriad spindly trunks. Watching the burning cinders fly up on all sides was briefly satisfying, but it was a stupid waste of energy, and he soon stopped. He swooped higher and headed for the top of a nearby hill. It was crowned with a circle of boulders that had kept the scrub from growing on it. Kylo parked the landspeeder and set Vader’s helmet on one of the boulders. He sat next to it, where he had a view back to the Palace sunk into its distant escarpment.

He wondered if Spikey had ever seen it from…..NO! He did not wonder about her, _anything_ about her at all.

He took a deep preparatory breath, and fixed his stare on Vader’s helmet, allowing it to fill his consciousness. Deep breaths, in and out. _Your blood runs in my veins. Show me. Show me the way._

The landspeeder’s engine ticked and clicked as it cooled. The insects and other timid lifeforms in the scrub resumed their quiet noises. Kylo sank into a trance, and a tall man in a black cloak arose to his inward eye, blotting out the sunlit hills and plains before him. A strong man. He walked ahead, half-turning as though to check Kylo was following him. Kylo, seated on his boulder, followed him through endless passages in the darkness, through storms of fire, through the faintly-sensed presence of figures in combat. Hours passed, yet they never seemed to arrive anywhere. Kylo imagined his grandfather leading him to a place where pain and regret could not reach him. He imagined Vader standing between him and Rey, making a barrier she could not penetrate. It was unclear whether the figure in his vision was doing this, or simply walking on.

_You’re following yourself, I think_ , said Rey in his head. Kylo threw himself backwards in frustration, beating at the rocks around him with his fists.

_You do know that Darth Vader turned away from the Dark Side at the end?_ Rey asked. _He was Anakin Skywalker when he died. Didn’t Luke tell you that?_

_That’s what Luke wanted everyone to believe._

_Why would he make that up?_ said Rey. _Anyway, it’s true._

What if it _was_ true, thought Kylo with horror. He’d used Vader’s helmet as a Dark talisman, but…

_What if that’s the reason it didn’t work?_ said Rey. _It’s a symbol of his redemption, not of the evil he did. It was never going to channel the Dark for you._

_I can’t be redeemed,_ thought Kylo. He thought of the times he’d held somebody’s neck and snapped it. Slowly. Snoke had told him to take his time about it, to make sure his victims wondered if he was really going to go through with it. Let them feel the strain building up and up in their vertebrae, Snoke said.

He could feel Rey’s disgust. But not disgust at him. At Snoke.

_What he did to you is torture. YOU were the one being tortured all along. How old were you when he started making you do those things? Fifteen? He tried to unmake you. And he failed. You are resilient beyond his imagining. The Light still calls to you._

_It destroys me,_ he thought bitterly.

_You’re still here. Still fighting. You have survived this far._

_And do you think they’ll take me back? Leia? The Resistance? I can go back to them and all will be forgiven and we’ll have a great big group hug?_ Kylo scoffed.

_The Resistance, I don’t know. But Leia’s lived with the Force all her life. She knows what it does, how it can take you and make you its pawn. She would take you back with no hesitation. Han was telling the truth. She wants you back. She’d walk across Mustafar’s lava fields to save you. And even I would give you a chance._

_What?_

_I respect Leia’s opinion that far. And…you spared my life once. You spared me, when you would not spare your father._

_You want to know why? Even I don’t know why I spared that child, Rey_. And yet…he had always wondered the same thing. He felt her curiosity and his crossing like swords. A clash of brightness. Something between them.

_Besides, you’re not the person I thought you were. I see you with Spikey. The way you two are together_ ….Rey had some carefully guarded thoughts around that.

_Spikey hates me so much right now that she’d kill me if she could. Thanks to you. Why did you tell her?_

_She deserves to know what you’ve done! Otherwise she’s in love with some fantasy of you. She has to make her own choices about you._

_How very noble that sounds. But really you did it out of spite. You weren’t trying to help anyone, you bitch!_

He felt a little jolt of discomfort from Rey. He’d hit a nerve. For a moment she didn’t seem to know how to answer him, and her thoughts flickered uncertainly. There was a sense of embarrassment. Then she rallied.

_Anyway that’s not the thing…that’s not why I’m talking to you, she said. I have to ask you something. Or tell you something._

Kylo waited. He wasn’t going to encourage Rey. On the other hand, he couldn’t force her to leave his head either. _You’re going to tell me anyway,_ he thought with a sigh.

_All right. I think Snoke gave you the bad dreams. Always. I didn’t get them like you did, and I didn’t have Snoke in my life_. Rey could feel him bridling up into a rage, and she added hastily, _Just think about it. Think! It’s possible, isn’t it?_

Kylo felt such a rush of anger that suddenly he had no difficulty seizing the Force and using it to throw Rey out. Though she was still trying to talk to him as she dwindled away. _And the Force…we need to figure out some things about that. You and me._

Kylo sat with his head in his hands. He tried not to think about any of it. Every bit of it was sickening.

* * *

  
Rey. The next day, Kylo thought about her as he walked to the workshop along mainly empty corridors. The few people around gave him a wide berth, and just as well for them, he thought.

Rey. He had offered to teach her the ways of the Force. Remembering that, his cheeks burned all the way up to the tips of his ears with shame. She’d gone and learned the ways of the Force just fine! Then she’d come back two nights ago, opened his head and taken what she wanted. And she’d come back yesterday and lodged inside him like burr. However she’d gained those Force powers, it wasn’t just Luke’s teaching, unless Luke had changed a great deal. During their Force-linked contact over the past weeks, he’d sensed that Rey approached everything, even Luke’s teaching, with a certain skepticism.

He reached the iron-bound doors of the workshop and entered the room. It was lit by high windows that sent bars of light through air permanently hazed with dust and smoke. A few weeks back, after wiring up his saber the first time, he’d decided to give the kyber crystal more time soaking in a different mineral mixture. Now he reached out the crystal with a pair of tongs. His hands shook slightly as he held it up to the light.

He had loved this crystal since the moment he first saw it. Nothing could match the intense wine-dark depth of its colour. For that, he’d been willing to put up with its flaws, the spidery cracks that showed up under scrutiny. But now…the mineral matrix seemed to have done its job. The shatter-lines were filled in. But not with the same colour. A web of golden yellow was visible throughout the crystal. Kylo felt a bubble of disappointment rise to his throat.

He tapped the crystal on an anvil, and it rang true. He looked at it through a series of microscopes and polarising microscopes, with the same result: the crystal was healed. The more he looked, the more the new colour appealed to him. The purity of its redness had been replaced by something more subtle that shifted with different lights, revealing new aspects. In its own way, it was gorgeous.

He passed the rest of the day rewiring and calibrating the crystal into the lightsaber. As he worked, he could recall the events of the past few days as though they were far away or had happened to somebody else. He thought about Rey’s a rock-hard certainty that everything Kylo believed was wrong, Snoke was wrong, and possibly she didn’t believe much of what Luke said either.

Some day soon he was going to have to choose what he believed. That squashed-down part of him wasn’t going to stay down forever, and it wasn’t going to vote for Snoke.

If Rey struck out in her own direction, where would she go? What meaning would she find in the Force? That parting image yesterday… _And the Force…we need to figure out some things about that. You and me._ She had imagined a pair of explorers. Not master and apprentice. Something new.

Once Kylo had had as much curiosity as her. He’d been a child then, and adults had told him they knew the answers.

Finally the lightsaber was assembled. It seemed to work better than ever. He swung it around the darkening workshop and it left trails of fire.

Against what enemies, he wondered.


	46. Resemblances

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Uh-oh.
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Spikey knocked on the door of the Hux apartments. Beran Hux opened the door and gave her a friendly smile.

“Ah, Fariolana. It’s been too long.”

Spikey bowed her head, pleased at the compliment, and walked to her usual corner, swinging the chitarra off her back. She cast a look around. The whole family was there including the poisonous mother, and a few of the usual hangers-on. The friends of Beran who’d been at Kylo’s were there too. The one she called Skeptical Man was watching her but avoiding meeting her eye. Well, there’s something new, thought Spikey.

After she’d sung and played a while, she was surprised to see Sara Rem Nata come out of one of the inner rooms. She stood next to Hux and said something. They both stared at Spikey. This whole staring thing was getting awkward.

Hux’s mother stalked out of the same inner room and started talking to Sara Rem Nata. Seeing the two of them in profile, Spikey saw something that made a chill run down her spine. Sara Rem Nata had exactly the same profile as Hux’s mother. And that long ginger braid she wore? Sara Rem Nata’s hair was an older, more faded version of General Hux’s. Seeing them all together now, she couldn’t believe she had not realised they were related.

Sara Rem Nata looked over to Spikey and that cruel smile flickered around the corners of her mouth. She nodded to Beran. The two of them linked arms and came over to where Spikey was playing.

“You’re probably thirsty. Come and have some refreshment,” said Beran, smiling. Spikey had to follow them to another room. General Hux was standing alone by a drinks table. There was an uncomfortable silence while Beran filled a glass and handed it to her. Spikey could feel Sara Rem Nata sifting through her thoughts.

“This is going to be easier than we thought,” said Sara Rem Nata to Hux. “I think little Spikey here would love to help us.” She bent down over Spikey as though she were a child. “Kylo Ren has been an absolute bastard to you, hasn’t he?”

“Umm…..I think he’s that way to everybody.” Spikey couldn’t honestly accuse Kylo of having deceived her about the kind of person he was. She had deceived herself.

“I remember when Kylo ordered the stormtroopers to execute an entire village, that time on Jakku. Completely unnecessary - he’d got the information he wanted and the poor people weren’t putting up any resistance,” said Beran.

“Ugh, really?” said Spikey, revolted. Again, she was aware that Hux and his brother exchanged glances, but couldn’t read their looks.

“You know he killed his own father recently?” Hux continued.

“Were they….fighting?” asked Spikey, though she had a sick feeling that she knew the answer already.

“No, it wasn’t a fight. He killed him in cold blood. Han Solo thought he could make an appeal to him, to win him over to the Resistance side, but Kylo ran him through with his lightsaber. Which might have been commendably loyal to the First Order but still….no family feeling at all.”

“Wait, what? _Han Solo_ is his father?” She remembered the dream murder all too well, but she had not known who that was…

“Yes, and he’s Leia Organa’s son.”

Spikey was so shocked she couldn’t think of anything to say straight away. Then, “Why would he do that? Why not just take him prisoner?”

“Oh, he just wanted to get in Snoke’s good books. He’s always trying to be Snoke’s favourite, and no doubt he thought killing Han Solo would impress him.”

Spikey found she was shaking slightly. “How…. _.evil!_ The vile…. _creature!”_

“He’s done a lot of vile things. He is Snoke’s chief interrogator,” Hux said, and went on to describe his favourite methods. Slicing people’s limbs off, a bit at a time, while they begged for mercy. Snapping their necks, slowly, once they’d told all they knew.

Spikey was having trouble breathing. She kept seeing Kylo’s hands, that always seemed so full of twitchy energy. Like his fingers were looking for something to strangle, she had once thought. She should have held on to that thought, rather than letting those hands touch her. How could people be so double-faced? she thought, in agony.

Of course she had known he was a killer. He was fighting in a war. She _knew_ that. But his own family? The thought sickened her. Especially the way he’d done it.

Hux was watching her closely, his face giving nothing away. Sara Rem Nata had a pleased look.

“Family’s important, isn’t it?” said Beran, giving his brother a long look. Hux’s pinched face relaxed into a rare genuine-looking smile as he returned the look.

“Yes. I can’t imagine what I would do if one of my family were… on the wrong side. Not _that,_ though. What Kylo did is…..monstrous.”

“Yes. _Yes it is!_ ” said Spikey. She felt full of blackness. Betrayal. It boiled up inside of her. “Them, those Siths, those Dark Knights, and their fucking initiation rites! You know that’s what it was? Killing somebody that loved him? They have to….they _have_ to do that! I hate him! I hate all of them!” she said, passionately, and stopped, aghast. Where had that come from? The words had burst out of her, out of her control. Had Sara Rem Nata made a sacrifice like this?

“Family is important,” said Sara Rem Nata reassuringly. “Isn’t it?” She’d unburied Spikey’s memory of her sister, dead by her own hand. Put it where Spikey could not avoid seeing it.

“He is scum. A patricide. Dangerously out of control, an emotional wreck, and an all-round liability to the First Order,” said Hux. “And I want him gone.”

Spikey was aware that they were all looking at her with a weight of intention.

“I don’t see how I can help…”

“You have access to his rooms. He trusts you,” said Hux.

“He doesn’t trust anyone that much. He’d know I was planning to kill him immediately. That kind of intention is too big to hide.”

“And yet we’ve successfully hidden it for months,” Hux said smugly. “They call our sister the mistress of the subtle arts. She can do it for you. She’s done it for us.”

“Oh.” Spikey felt many things click into place. “The poisoned food. The earrings. I realised the assassin is probably still in the Palace. It was you?”

Hux and Sara Rem Nata exchanged a look. Triumph and complicity. Hux turned to Spikey.

“And now of course you know too much. This conversation ends in one of two ways. One,” he held up one finger. “You agree to help us, we get rid of a dangerous man who has no right to live, and we get you out of servitude and off the planet.”

“To Fariol, even! Home,” said Beran quickly.

“Yes, home. And with enough money to start a career,” added Hux. He held up a second finger. “Or you never leave this room alive. Obviously we can’t risk Kylo Ren ever finding out we’ve had this conversation with you.”

Spikey’s mind jammed up with the possibilities. Thoughts exploding in all directions. Too much to think and feel at once. Everything she’d ever wanted. Revenge for her sister. Murder. Freedom. She couldn’t take it in. Except…something felt wrong.

“If Sara Rem Nata can hide my thoughts, why would you worry about Kylo Ren knowing we’ve had this conversation? You could block it! Or make me forget! How good is this block?”

“Very good, for a short time. But things can leak out over time. Or if you don’t have the willpower to feed the block. If I’m not here to renew the block, it’s not safe forever,” said Sara Rem Nata. “So my dear, you have only two choices. Death or dereliction of duty. And seeing how you share our feelings about Kylo Ren, I don’t think it’s a difficult choice, is it?”

Spikey could feel Sara Rem Nata’s will bent upon her, and saw in her eyes the flash of ambition. Greed. Sara Rem Nata had a pod in this race too. Perhaps she had once held the favoured position closest to Snoke, before a young upstart with wild Force talent appeared on the scene. Spikey sucked in a breath between clenched teeth. She felt as though she was caught in a vice between her hatreds and desires, and theirs. It was so hard to straighten out her thoughts. She had wished people dead often enough, in a passion of fury. Sure that if she’d had a weapon and the chance of a clean getaway, she would have done it. Plunged a knife right into somebody’s heart.

“I don’t think we have to put a compulsion on her,” said Sara Rem Nata to Hux.

“You can do this of your own free will,” said Beran to Spikey. Her own free will! Precious words!

“I _want_ to do this,” she said. “I do! I am only afraid because…I know you need me as a tool to do this. And I want to be the tool you need. It looks like it should be easy. But I’ve never done this kind of thing. I’m not a woman of action.”

“It will be easy,” said Hux smoothly. “No commando skills required. You’ll have the mind block in place, you’ll go in to do your usual job, and at the right moment, you’ll place this against his throat.” He held up a small cylinder the size of her little finger. “Right here.” He indicated the hollow where Spikey’s carotid artery pulsed under her jaw.

“He’ll fucking kill me the instant I touch him with anything like that,” said Spikey, horrified. “That can’t possibly work.”

“It’ll take half his head off before he knows what’s happened. Here’s how you trigger it.” Hux held the device next to a tray piled high with a barely-touched joint of meat. He toggled a switch on the end of it, and something silvery and too fast to see exploded out of the end of the cylinder. The joint was bisected instantly with a wet smacking sound, gravy splattering everywhere. Spikey felt her stomach hollow out with a cold, sick feeling. She couldn’t imagine watching that happen to Kylo’s head, especially while she was touching him. Her heart thumped like a sledgehammer. Sara Rem Nata was watching her, the cruel smile back in place.

“Or we use it on you,” she said.

Spikey put her hands over her mouth, gagging.

“Yes, quite,” said Hux. He did something with brisk fingers that rewound the killer filaments hanging from the device. It looked innocuous again. Just a small cylinder she could easily hide in her hand.

“Why doesn’t one of _you_ do it?” asked Spikey. “Sara Rem Nata, you are often alone with Kylo. He trusts you.”

“Oh, I don’t think Snoke would like that at all, having his precious Knight of Ren murdered by us. We’ll need to be conspicuously visible elsewhere while that unfortunate shitbag meets his unlamented end. You’re a nobody. Nobody’s watching you and you’ll be gone before they have a chance to notice Kylo’s missing. Now. Come here.”

Spikey moved to stand in front of Sara Rem Nata. She couldn’t help it. The older woman put her hands on Spikey’s temples. Spikey felt her moving in her mind, knitting and weaving and building. Her thoughts about Kylo became foggy, then sharply reduced, as though seen through the wrong end of a telescope. The weapon in her hand, her deadly intention, remained bright and clear, but as though translated into another language. Gibberish that only she could understand. As though she would think “I am going to kill you,” and order her hand to do it, and the words in her mind would be nonsense, some inanity about the weather, even as her hand moved to strike. Her memory of this conversation nestled in a thicket of mirrors, of inconsequential chat and laughter. She could think it, see it, and yet it remained invisible.

Sara Rem Nata smiled with satisfaction and withdrew. “You were a difficult subject, but that is because you are difficult to read anyway. He won’t know what you’re planning now.”

“Kylo doesn’t try to read me in detail, anyway. It’s too messy in my head, he says.”

Hux pressed the tiny weapon into her hand and gave her a little squeeze like a handshake.

“When you’ve done it, walk down to the shuttle port. We’ll have somebody looking out for you, with your manumission papers and travel permit.”

Spikey felt tears start to her eyes. She seized Hux’s hand and shook it back fervently, unable to speak.

But by the time she returned to her rooms, the cold, sick feeling had returned.

She would never have the courage to kill in cold blood. She didn’t feel anger now, only a kind of sick shame that weakened and bewildered her. Loathing him, herself, and her own weakness. How could she launch an attack out of that?

You never know til you try, she told herself. Only by killing Kylo could she discover that she did indeed have the courage.

Though perhaps that was also what Kylo had done. He’d done the unthinkable in order to prove he had the necessary courage. From the confused images she’d seen, it hadn’t worked out for him.

It wouldn’t work out for her either. The more she thought about it, the less likely it seemed that the Huxes would help her escape. What was in it for them, after all? They thought they could protect themselves from Snoke’s mindreading, but Spikey would always be a risk, especially if she left Sara Rem Nata’s sphere of influence. Why risk having Snoke discover they’d murdered his precious protege?

But she didn’t have a choice, either.

 

 

 

 

 


	47. A Woman of Action

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spikey's got the means and the motive to kill Kylo Ren
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Spikey had unpicked the hem of one sleeve and slipped the death cylinder — the daisy cutter — into it. She could even reach in and use her thumbnail to toggle it on without taking it out. Now she glided around with painful care, terrified that she would eviscerate herself with one false move.

She spent a ridiculous amount of time deciding what Kylo’s last breakfast should be. It had to be edible. Not elaborate enough to raise suspicion. It had to be ordinary in every way. Or should it be unusual enough to distract him while she got close enough to trigger the daisy cutter? What was in the commissary? What was in season? Was Sara Rem Nata’s mental block as good as it seemed?

And now she was padding carefully along the corridor to Room 25 with a tray of unsuspicious pancakes. Her last meal for Kylo could be the same as her first, she had decided, after five hours of sleeplessness.

She knocked on the door and entered with her stomach turned to water with the terror of it. She was actually going to kill a Knight of Ren. The most powerful Knight of Ren. The Dark heir to the Galaxy. One tiny squeeze of the daisy cutter, and there’d be one less Sith apprentice.

Kylo was a sulking lump of blankets as she came in, but he turned over instantly and looked at her with the same cold stare he’d had the first time they’d met.

“You!” he said flatly.

 _You murderous piece of Sith shit_ , she thought, but didn’t say it aloud. If she had, the wrong person would have ended up dead.

“Shut up!” they both said in unison. Both flinched at this evidence that their minds still ran in parallel courses, like it or not. Impasse.

“Put it there and get out,” said Kylo.

And that was that. She’d have to try again at lunchtime. Torture.

At lunchtime Kylo was nowhere to be found. Spikey cleaned the rooms slowly, waiting. Hoping he would arrive, and hoping he wouldn’t. She gave up around mid-afternoon, oppressed by the sight of the sofas she used to curl up and read in, and the bed she’d slept in.

She ate a good dinner. Kylo’s dinner. He had come in and waved her off impatiently, saying he’d already eaten with the officers in the West Wing. Spikey could think of no possible reason to stay, so she had to admit defeat. She took Kylo’s food back to her quarters as a consolation.

Long after midnight she woke up from some nameless dream of terror, and that was the end of sleep for the night. She pulled on a long jersey against the autumn chill, and went for a walk outside, ending up at the dock of the lake where the howler swans lived. She almost jumped in, but thought better of it. The water was cold, and she didn’t need to actively seek any more misery. She made a nest in the shrubbery instead and curled up to wait for sunrise.

* * *

 

The sky was lightening, and Spikey was drowsing at last when she felt that familiar feeling of another presence inside her head. Somebody Force-reading her.

_Rey! Oh my gods, Rey! I’m so glad you’re here! You have to help me!_

_What’s wrong?_  
  
_I have to kill Kylo Ren! Please help me! I have to do it, but I’m afraid!_

 _Wait, what?_ The warm presence in her mind seemed suddenly to draw back, confused. _You have to kill him? Why? I’m not sure that’s such a good idea._

_“I hate him. He’s so evil! I hate them all, all the Siths, all the Dark Knights. Them and their murderous bargains with evil. The way he killed his father! And my sister…she was meant to kill me the same way. To please Snoke. She killed herself instead. I wish I could wipe them out, all the Siths. At least I can get one of the bastards! Come on, help me!_

_“What do you think I could do? Unless you can tell me where the First Order Palace is!_

_No, I don’t know that. We’re all stuck here in the back of beyond, and we have no idea where we are. I was just hoping…maybe you could stay in my head so I don’t feel so alone._ As soon as she has the thought, she regretted it. It sounded so cowardly. And it wouldn’t work anyway — Rey’s presence might betray Spikey’s lethal intentions to Kylo. She groaned with frustration.

Spikey felt Rey’s bright presence regarding her, deftly teasing out more details.

 _You're not the person I thought you were,_ said Rey after a while, and Spikey felt her heart plunge with disappointment. Of course Spikey was a disappointment to Rey, she thought sadly. Rey was amazing.

_What’s this about Hux? The First Order General? You’re involved with him too?_

_He wants Kylo dead. He’s trying to get me to do it, because he knows I can get close to Kylo easily. His sister’s put a mind block on me so Kylo won’t know what I’m planning._ Spikey felt a squirm of shame, exposing her dealings with Hux to Rey. There was something in Rey that Spikey recognised very well: a kind of effortless moral clarity. Rey was one who instinctively knew the right thing to do. Spikey had once known many of her uncle’s philosopher friends who achieved that through study and argument. But there were also people in whom it was inborn. Rey was one of those.

 _Hux and his brother have promised to get me out of this place and take me where I want to go, if I’ll help them, she admitted._ She was blushing. She knew Rey could see her hopes: Freedom, yes, but also the stage, the spotlight, the applause. It seemed such a mean motive.

 _Can you trust them? I think_ …. Spikey sensed Rey was trying to be gentle, but she wasn’t very impressed with Spikey. _I think they may have turned your head a little._

 _What do I gain from being on Kylo’s side?_ thought Spikey desperately. _You’ve known what it’s like, to be a nobody. I’ve seen footage, I’ve seen you on Jakku. You weren’t much more than a slave there!_

A long considering silence, or something like a silence in her mind. She could feel that Rey was still there. Like a person in a stranger’s house, carefully picking things up and examining them. With respect, though. Rey couldn’t help seeing the unpleasant memories in Spikey’s mind: the way he took Spikey for granted, or that time after Vole’s beating, when Kylo’s momentary tenderness had turned to weird, spiteful, lustful violence.

 _He’s pretty twisted up by Snoke, you know,_ said Rey cautiously. _Anything to do with the Light hurts him. Killing his father was meant to put out all the Light in him. It didn’t. He murdered his father for nothing. Every time he feels anything good he remembers that._

 _Why should you care?_ thought Spikey. _You’re his enemy. You should be delighted that I’m willing to kill Kylo._

Another pause. Rey seemed to be weighing her words. There was something else — was it shame?

_I shouldn’t have shown you Han’s death the way I did. I was letting my frustration get on top of me, because Kylo is being so blind. I didn’t care about hurting you, and I’m sorry._

Spikey sat up, shivering a little in the dawn wind coming off the lake. Rey was apologising to her! That wasn’t right either. _No, you were right, Rey. I was blind. It’s like you broke a spell he had over me, with all his power and his glamour. I needed to know the truth about him, about the Dark. And I’ve always wondered why my sister died, when she was doing so well in her apprenticeship to Snoke. At least I have that answer._

_Your sister?_

_Would have had to kill me, or my mother. She killed herself_. Spikey hissed a shallow breath, anger blooming in her veins again. _I hate them all, the murdering dark bastards and their evil system. I can’t get them all, but I can take Kylo down, and that should make a difference._

_I’m not sure how much I believe in destiny, but I think Kylo’s destiny is…not that. We are enemies, it’s true. I think I am meant to meet him again. There is a prophecy about the balance of the Dark and the Light, about a Chosen One, about one who is fated to bring together the Dark and the Light. He might be the one. I might be the person who makes it happen._

Spikey groaned aloud. _Oh, screw the Dark and the Light! What do I care about the damned Balance? Do you want to know something? This Palace is over a thousand years old. I live in the oldest part of it. The slave quarters. The slave quarters have been here through every kingdom and empire and regime. Empire, Republic, Jedi, Sith, Light, Dark, it makes no difference. We’re civilised now so I’m called a servant rather than a slave, and nobody gets publicly beheaded for disobedience any more. But nothing has changed. The flogging block is still there!_

Rey seemed troubled. _I grew up knowing nothing,_ she admitted. _Now I’m learning more about the Galaxy, and there’s a lot that I don’t like. The Jedi temple on Coruscant sits above a thousand levels of slums. They never see the sun. I wonder….I don’t know what the Force wants, what it intends for us all. If anything. Jedi and Sith have studied it a long time, and passed on what they believe, but…._

“But you don’t believe it.” Spikey spoke aloud. She didn’t have the mental focus to mindspeak for so long.

_I think…..I don’t think I’m going to find it in some old holocron or some mysterious lost book. I think I need to confront Kylo, confront the Dark, and find out the truth about the Force._

“No! No! What do you want, Rey? Not ‘what does the Force want?’”

_It’s unfinished business between us, Spikey._

“Kylo’s a confused person. It’s like he’s two people,” Spikey said. “If you need to confront the Dark, it’s Snoke. And nobody knows where he is!”

_I need to face up to the Dark Side wherever I can find it, Spikey. I’m going to find Kylo._

“I think you’re a bit drawn in by his glamour too.”

 _No! How DARE you?_ But Rey’s denial was too quick to be convincing. There was an uncomfortable silence. Rey was examining that thought with distaste. Jealousy and shame churning through her. Fear. Curiosity. Desire.

 _Maybe the fate of the Force shouldn’t depend on us. We’re just fools_.

Spikey took a deep breath, held it, and let it out. It felt like the first real air she’d breathed in days. She snorted a laugh, and felt Rey, wherever she was, laugh too. She liked Rey.

But Rey couldn’t help her. “No Rey, we’re just human. But look, if I don’t kill Kylo, and soon, the Huxes are going to kill me.”

_Tell him! Kylo can deal with Hux!_

Spikey clutched her knees and drew herself up into a tiny ball. Her teeth shook at the thought. “I think he’d strike me dead first. He’d go off his nut! He’d know I went along with their plan willingly!”

_Not that willingly. I can tell you don’t really want to do it._

“Ugh. I hate him so much, though.”

_Snoke has been in his head a long time. Since he was a kid. Luke thinks…we think Snoke put frightening thoughts in his head, and then offered him something to control the fear._

“He has terrible dreams, I know that. Not just the one about Han Solo.”

_Snoke made him a child soldier. Can you imagine what it did to him? It may not even matter much to Snoke whether he makes Kylo into the tool he wants, or simply destroys him in the process, so long as he’s lost to the Light. He grew up with all these powers, and Snoke made sure he was terrified to use them. Snoke offered him security. So long as he does what Snoke says, he doesn’t have to make any choices._

“He just has to follow orders. Oh, by all the gods, what I would do with that power, if I had it!” said Spikey passionately.

_Yeah but…..killing him? Don’t do it Spikey. You’re not a killer and you’ll destroy yourself if you try. You’re going to have to confess to him._

“I’m going to have to throw myself on Kylo’s mercy. He doesn’t have any, Rey! You tell him. I’ll run away.” She knew it was stupid. There was nowhere on the planet to run.

_I can’t. He’s figured out how to block me. And he’d hunt you down if he thought you were still on their side. So you have to tell him. I’m sorry. You’re going to have to be brave about this._

She got to her feet, though. It was time. The sun was up. The howler swans were clapping their big wings in approval. The dawn wind was stirring and the world was tilting into a new day. “Stay with me, Rey.” And she did, watching through Spikey’s eyes as she walked the walled pathways to the garden of Room 25. Two women with their hearts in their mouths. Spikey could sense it.

 

 


	48. Argument on a Knife's Edge

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What matters more, a betrayal or a change of heart?
> 
> * * *

On the way to Kylo’s room, Spikey rehearsed what she was going to say. Somehow she was not surprised when instead of whispering “Kylo, Hux is trying to kill you,” she found herself mumbling something about the howler swans. This was going to be harder than she thought. She made a detour to her room and picked up the diamond ear-cuffs.

She knocked on the garden door and let herself in, after a wary glance at the hovering security droid. It still appeared to trust her. 

Not Kylo, though. He rolled out of bed and into a combat stance instantly before waking up properly. 

“What do you want?” he asked, after a pause. His eyes were red-rimmed and he looked haggard. And furious.

“It looks like autumn’s here already!” she blurted out. Kylo stared at her. Spikey spread her hands out in front of her and signalled desperately. “No, no, no! That’s not what I want to say!” 

He was raising his hands. He looked mad enough to throw Force-lightning. Spikey fished the diamond cuffs out of her pocket and threw them on the table. She pointed urgently, and he stopped where he was, staring at the cuffs. 

“Look! Don’t touch!” was all she could manage. He narrowed his eyes. “Assayer!” said Spikey urgently, the word nearly choking her. It felt like she had an invisible hand round her throat. Whose, she could not tell. 

“What in all the Corellian hells is going on?” he said. Spikey pointed at her throat and shook her head. He was still standing there dumbstruck, teeth clenched. The assayer was already on the table, so she ran it over the earrings. It signalled poison, and she could see him drawing the same conclusion she had. 

“Poisoned after all. The poison was on a timer or something. Why are you telling me?”

“Link with Rey. She knows.”

Kylo slammed both hands down on the table with terrifying force. “I’m not talking to Rey! I’ve had enough of her and her _lies!_ Now you’re going to tell me who’s been trying to kill me!”

Spikey was utterly frozen in place, and her head was rapidly filling up with fog. In desperation, she tried the only thing she could think of: she took the words from a song. A pop song from the Coruscant slums. Her throat unlocked and she sang,

_“For the General’s got a plan,  
And he’ll kill you if he can…”_

She skipped a couple of verses and jumped into, 

_“She’s a sister to the clan,  
She’ll do anything for her man…”_

Kylo was looking at her as though she was crazy. He took one long stride towards her and grabbed her by the throat. His other hand came up to her face as though to tear the thoughts out of her. She felt the Force like a series of blows to her head. Then he started to search, really search. He was much better than he had been. But clearly he could find nothing. He drew back, looking at her with slitty-eyed frustration. He was not remotely thinking straight, she thought.

He slapped her suddenly across the face, clipping her on the nose. A spray of blood hit the table. 

“Tell me!”

Spikey pounded the table in frustration, and wrote “CAN’T!” in the blood, without looking at her hand. He shook her. 

The block on Spikey’s tongue was unpredictable. “Am I carrying a weapon?” she blurted out. Kylo searched her mind again. 

“No,” he said.

She pointed at her sleeve and knocked it against the table so daisy cutter made a betraying “clunk” on the wood. The words from an old folk-song came into her head.

_“She was a red-headed lady from the best family  
And oh, how she bewitched me…”_

Spikey gave a tiny nod and gestured to her sleeve again with her eyes. _“Careful, when you play with fire,”_ she sang.

He put some sort of command on her body so she couldn’t move, and then felt the lump at the end of her sleeve with his long fingers. He worked the daisy cutter out of its hiding spot in the hem, and held it up. 

Spikey tried to tear herself away, out if its range. She couldn’t tell which end was pointed at her.

“This is a nasty thing,” he said quietly, still holding Spikey helplessly in place. “Why are you carrying it?”

 _“I can’t say what is on my mind,  
You must unlock my heart to find…” _she warbled operatically. Pleadingly. It was just some rubbish from a light opera, but she could see in his eyes that he was finally seeing her as a person, and how he resisted that. How he didn’t want to let her in. The coward, she thought. People are always too difficult for him. 

_“Oh free me from this curse  
Before I get any worse!”_

Something flickered in his eyes, and he released his Force hold on her, instead pulling her down to sit next to him. He laid a hand on her head. “I’ll have to work on this. Be still.” Now he knew what he needed to do, he worked very gently, finding and lifting the baffling mirrors Sara Rem Nata had laid over Spikey’s mind. She could feel him tensing again, mouth turning down at the corners with outrage as the Huxes’ plan was laid bare. She doubted he was even aware of how tightly he was gripping her arm. 

But she could speak again! “Yes, you see it? Sara Rem Nata is a Hux. If you saw her next to his mother, you’d realise it right away,” she said. “One of the things she can do is hide intentions in a person’s head so you can’t find them,” she continued. She saw Kylo’s eyes widen as he took in the possibilities.

“You’re saying Hux sent the assassins, and she hid his intentions from me?” His mouth started to twitch as though he were cursing silently. “Fucking Hux. He left yesterday! When I find him I’m going to kill him!”

Then he rounded on her, standing up suddenly storming around the room in a rage. “And you! You went along with it!” He swept down on Spikey where she was huddled on a chair licking blood from her top lip. “You rat! I thought I could trust you. You couldn’t wait to sell yourself to the highest bidder!”

“What choices have I got? I’ve told you before, I’ve got all the morals a slave can afford! They’re going to kill me if I don’t do what they want. What would you have done?” She glared up at him, suddenly pulled up to his level of fury. Her tongue restored, it was on fire. “Oh, I forgot!” she snarled. _“You’ve_ got the Force. _You_ would have simply unmade everyone with one sweep of your hand!”

His teeth were bared as though he’d like to tear her throat out. He was going to grab her and shake her like a rat, she could tell. She grabbed him first, by the front of his shirt. It was like grabbing a wall. “Please just for ONCE do something for me. ONE thing. Protect me from the Huxes! I saved your life, Kylo!”

The next ten seconds were the longest in Spikey’s life. Kylo stared at her, and for once his too-betraying face was frozen in a mask, his emotions unreadable. She could only wait and hope that whatever had been between them of love and trust and friendship weighed in the balance with him now.

“Dxun Dx’hit, I’m glad you told me,” he said at last, and let go of her. “I don’t know how I can protect you but I’ll try. If it means wiping out all the Huxes, it’ll give me great pleasure.”

Spikey flapped her arms helplessly. “It’s a mess. They saw how they could use me against you, and I was so angry, I walked right into it. I’m still angry, but…”

“But what?”

“I’m not angry enough, I guess. Not angry enough to kill. And anyway, Rey said you shouldn’t die just because I’m angry at you.”

“Rey, always Rey!” he snarled. 

“Yeah, Rey. She wants to talk to you.”

“Tell her I don’t want to talk to her.”

“I’m not your fucking go-between!” said Spikey, before she could stop herself. 

“You just did it for her!” said Kylo. "Go-between!"

Spikey felt something like an explosion of laughter in her head from Rey, who was suddenly present for an instant. _I think it’s going to be okay._

Kylo shook his head and snorted a frustrated “Hah!” Then he did something very un-Kylo-like. He walked very slowly, almost stiffly, towards Spikey, and raised his hands very cautiously onto her shoulders. She looked at him mistrustfully, wondering what was up now. His touch was familiar, and she did not shrink at it, though she thought she might. He touched her nose gently and she felt the pain vanish under a healing glow of Force. Warily, she rested her hands on his arms. Kylo looked into her eyes with his head cocked on one side. After a moment he dropped his chin to rest on her head. That had to take a good deal of trust, she thought. He couldn’t really know whether she carried more weapons.

“Can you get me off this planet?” 

“No. You know why.”

“Bloody Snoke.”

“Will you always be angry at me?” he said. He sounded very young.

“That depends on what you do next, I suppose. Why were you so mad at me?”

Whatever the reason, he seemed unable to say it, though from the catch in his breathing, he was trying. “I missed you,” he said at last. 

“I missed you too. But I don’t just exist to make you happy, you know.” But she stepped into his embrace anyway, and they stood like that, still and silent, for many long minutes. It was as though they were afraid to break something. Rey mentally tip-toed out of Spikey’s head, trailing a complex tang of envy and happiness.

They were interrupted by a message droid buzzing at the door. 

Snoke wanted to see Kylo. 

“Right! And I want to see him!” said Kylo, galvanised into action. “Wait till he hears what that filthy rodent General’s been up to!” He practically kicked the droid out the door and started rushing around the room getting dressed. “On the way I’m going to kill every Hux I can find!” Once he had his gauntlets on he scooped up the poisoned ear-cuffs, giving them a shake before shoving them in a pocket. “Wait till Snoke sees these!” he snarled.

Spikey sat with her arms folded, not helping. She couldn’t really see how Kylo’s “kill all Huxes” plan was going to protect her much. He might miss one. 

Kylo stopped for moment, laying a hand on her head and smiling down at her. A quick, affectionate ruffling of her hair and then he was gone, kicking the skirts of his tunic out in long strides. 

Spikey slipped the daisy cutter back into her sleeve.


	49. One Fell Swoop

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> What a mess....
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo’s rooms seemed too quiet after he’d left for the Throne Room. Spikey started to feel uneasy. Kylo’s lack of any plan worried her. He was going soon, surely. Leaving her here, and implicated in whatever bloodbath he managed to carry out before getting on his shuttle. 

She had the idea to visit the girls in the Comfort Wing. Even if none of them were up, she’d feel better in their quarters. She didn’t doubt Kylo’s ability to find her if he needed to. Spikey didn’t seem to be part of his schemes, though. So her plan was “hide on a sofa, or possibly under a blanket, until whatever happens next is over”. Maybe something better would occur to her.

She went out into the garden courtyard, intending to take the outside way to the Comfort Wing. But as soon as she was through the archway, Sara Rem Nata flowed out silently from behind a statue, velvet-soft and deadly. She had Spikey in an unbreakable grip of Force and hand before she could draw breath to scream. And she wanted to scream, seeing the look in Sara Rem Nata’s eyes.

“You told him, you little worm! Did you think I wouldn’t know if you spoke to Ren?” she spat, her face inches from Spikey’s. “I wish I had time to torture you the way you deserve. Where is he?” She loosened her grip on Spikey’s throat.

“Looking for you. Why, can’t you find him yourself?” As soon as she said that, Spikey regretted it. They might be her last words. What a stupid way to die. She tried to say something else, but it seemed that Sara Rem Nata’s proximity had brought back the mental block. She had lost the power of speech! 

But she could sing.

_“She took out her dagger, of fire and of steel…”_ she sang, dredging up the words to an old ballad. Fingers moving to its beat. Sara Rem Nata looked at her with hatred.

“What are you doing?!” she snarled. 

Too late. 

Spikey staggered back in horror as Sara Rem Nata’s full weight slumped onto her, draping her in a curtain of blood. Sara Rem Nata was nearly cut in two by the daisy cutter, which Spikey had toggled within her sleeve with no thought at all. No thought, but acting out the words of the most bloodthirsty song she knew.

Spikey backed away from the body oozing intestines over the neatly raked gravel path. This was the death intended for Kylo. Spikey’s gorge rose and she nearly blacked out. She turned to run, skidded to a halt, looked around. “Think!” she snarled.

The body was hidden by the high walls of the garden, only visible to somebody who walked this particular stretch of path. But within this narrow tranche, the body was unavoidable. Even if Spikey could drag it behind a bush, it would be impossible to get rid of the quantity of blood and other fluids left behind. So maybe running was the best plan after all. Fast and far. She would have to spend the rest of her life in a cave somewhere, eating grass and insects.

Spikey’s feet barely brushed the ground as she raced back to her quarters. Peeling off her blood-soaked clothes and putting on fresh ones, scrubbing off the sticky splatters on her hands and arms. Knives, blankets, something to make fire with. The beloved chitarra might as well be firewood for all the use it was to her now. Leave it behind. Leave everything behind. Go! Go! Go!

She wrapped everything in her blanket, tied it around her waist and sprinted out of the building. As she rounded the corner to the orchards, a spy drone flew out to meet her. The whine of its lifter motors was not alone, she realised. Drones were out in force, and all of them were turning out of the sky, out of the pathways, towards her. She turned tail and ran the other way towards the lake. The drones flew in formation above her, easily keeping pace.

She ran with mindless focus, weaving and cornering and dodging the obstacles and turns of the labyrinthine gardens. A small part of her was conscious enough to think, _How did they know?_ Or _what has Kylo said or done to set them on me?_

Almost at the lake, something like a small rolling battle droid lunged out from a parallel path, gravel spraying as it turned to intercept her. But instead of swinging out its blasters, it shot something else out with blinding speed. Spikey was slapped to the ground by cables that bound her in a tight net. She rolled over to look at the droid.

It didn’t talk. So she had to lie there in silence until three black-clad Palace guards arrived. They took off the binding cables and replaced them with chains around her feet and hands. She tried not to cry as they lifted her roughly and carried her back to the central wing of the Palace, into the old courtyard with the flogging block. Steps led down to a durasteel door with a short, dark corridor on the other side. The guards opened a door on one side and threw her in. 

“She tried to kill me!” Spikey said.

“Who?” said one of the guards. 

“It was self-defense! She was choking me!”

“What are you talking about?” asked the guard. The other one cuffed him to be quiet.

“Snoke’s orders,” he muttered.

“What am I here for?” she yelled. The door slammed on his answer, if there was any answer. 

Snoke’s orders. It was possible the order to arrest her had come even before she’d killed Sara Rem Nata, and Spikey was caught in the noose of some other plot.

* * *

Behind the durasteel door with its modern locks lay a plain stone room with a drain in the floor. It looked very old — surely as old as the slave quarters. The only light came from a grille in one wall. Spikey stood up on tip-toe to look out. The worn stone stump of the flogging block was the only thing in the small court outside.

And so Spikey’s dream had only been a transient thing. These were the realities. The great age of the hard stones around her showed her how futile it had been to imagine some romance of salvation. Her tiny armament of wit and love and good cheer had not thawed the frozen continent of the First Order, nor even the heart of her Dark Knight. She would be forgotten in the urgency of his feud with Hux and his loyalty to Snoke.

She sat on the floor and slumped against the wall. She was tired, very tired. One finger traced the lines on her arm. How often she had been sick of living, or desperate to stop feeling, or desperate feel again. Now the choice was being taken away from her, and of course she wanted to count every breath she had left. Breath was the most precious gift she had ever had. She had been so fully alive for the past few months. She’d felt love and pain. She’d been caught up in the great river of songs and words that made the Galaxy’s history live. Her soul had rung like a struck gong.

It would have made a good story, she thought. The servant girl who charmed a Sith apprentice. But real life had no mercy, and neither did the First Order. 

She cried a little, to get the tears out of the way ahead of time. Everyone died, she told herself. Surely she could try to bear it no better and no worse than anyone else. For her sister’s sake, she would continue her war on everything until the end, she told herself. She vowed not to beg and not to plead for the mercy she knew would not come.


	50. Showdown

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Showdown at the Hux apartments
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

Kylo Ren was dressed to fight. His lightsaber was clipped into the wide leather belt of his tunic and he wore the long black cloak of a Knight of Ren. His boots rang on the marble floors like the tramp of doom as he strode towards the Hux apartments in the East Wing. The Force was a black wing around him, palpable even to those with no gift to discern it. Certainly his face was enough to make people freeze in place, heads lowered, or turn aside if they could, hoping to escape notice.

He wasn’t aware whether there was a lock on the door to Hux’s suite. The door slammed open at his gesture, and he swept in, lightsaber already ignited.

By the Force, he thought, it was as though Hux already thought himself Emperor. There were busts and paintings everywhere, like a museum to himself and his family. For a man of such austere bearing, it was astonishing how much gilt and velvet he had in his rooms. Kylo danced with his lightsaber in an ecstasy of destruction until every sneering portrait and tinkling ornament was a smouldering ruin. 

He could tell there was somebody in one of the rooms. _Let them hear him and fear him first,_ he thought. Then he stomped towards one of the end bedrooms where his Force sensed life-signs. 

“Come out!” he roared. “I know you’re in there!” He kicked down the end door. 

This had to be Hux’s mother, drawing herself up with terrified dignity in front of a sumptuous hover-bed. She was a ferocious old woman, even frightened as she was. Her expensively kept hair, her perfect nails and her shimmeringly luxurious nightdress did nothing to disguise the coldly reptilian power of her personality. Kylo held out one hand and let the force of his anger sweep her across the floor and into his grip. Her pulsing throat under his thumb. He could feel it even through his gauntlet.

“You were in on it too, weren’t you!” he shouted, and used the Force like a like a scalpel to search her thoughts. Now he’d done it on Spikey, he knew how to see past the blocks and mirrors Sara Rem Nata had put in this woman’s mind. They were strong and bewildering, but there it was at last. How could that have been hidden so long, he wondered. It was a towering edifice of ambition and murderous intent like something from one of Spikey’s old Corellian tragedies. This woman was a consummate game-player, and he could see all her game-pieces lined up in play: Hux, his brother Beran, and Sara Rem Nata, who proved to be a half-sister to the General. Spikey and other people were bit-players. Everything aligned towards Snoke, to keep him happy with the Huxes and ignorant about their moves against Kylo Ren.

This family, unlike his, moved in concert. No one of them had instigated the plan; rather it was something they had cooked up together. A poisonous hive-mind.

“Who are the others?” he roared. There were only General Hux and Beran and Sara Rem Nata, she told him. And Spikey. The rest were just go-betweens, servants with no knowledge of their part in the plot to assassinate him. 

“Where are they?” He shook her until her teeth clicked. The General and his brother were on the Finalizer. Sara Rem Nata was still on the planet. She lived outside the Palace. Kylo could feel her mother frantically looking for some lie or half-truth to conceal her exact whereabouts, and it was clear she genuinely didn’t know where Sara Rem Nata was at this precise moment. Kylo cast his mind out but couldn’t find her either. But hiding from the Force was Sara Rem Nata’s great talent. Never mind. The Palace security network probably could find her, and so could Snoke, he was sure.

He dropped Hux’s mother and she slumped to the ground, unconscious. A mere shadow of Force was needed to keep her subdued. Kylo sat down on a pouffe made from a stuffed pountal paw hemmed with gold braid, waiting until it was time to meet with Snoke. He tried calling Snoke with his mind, but as usual there was no response. Rey had a theory that Snoke used some kind of time-stasis technology to prolong his life, so there were times when he was not in the normal universe at all. The holocron histories she was reading said that in the past, Force-users had noticed these absences of Snoke, or some being that could be Snoke. Rey thought….

But he must not think of Rey. Thinking of Rey weakened him. Before he’d managed to block her, she’d been hounding him constantly through the Force-link. The night of the shared dream had shown her more memories than he’d realised, and had left her as shaken as him. Sometimes she lost control and railed at him through the link. 

_Who was I? I saw a boy, a girl….I was that girl! You were that boy! How is it that I can’t remember? Tell me!_

He could resist her demands. _I don’t know. If Luke and Leia can’t tell you, then I don’t know either!_ And they could tell her, they had…but it meant nothing to her. She had no memory of the childhood and parents they told her about. Not his problem, Kylo had said, and flinched at the bolt of mental energy she had sent in his direction. Truly the Force did not understand distance.

But other times Rey’s intrusions shook him to the core, because they were not deliberate. A vision of her sitting at a table, eating with Luke. She was staring down at her knife and fork. Her sight started to swim with tears. _How is it that I know how to use a knife and fork? Who taught me? I never saw such things on Jakku! Why do my hands remember what my mind does not?_ Rey had thrown down the cutlery and run out into the windy darkness of her island. Some shadow of Kylo had wanted to put his arms around her to save her from falling from the heights.

_Tell me where you are and I will help you look for answers!_ he had said. And felt her waver.

To that shadow of himself, Snoke was a monster and Kylo’s life was a ruin. More painful still, he knew that Leia and even Rey believed he could have been different. That he could still be something else. 

Stop. He must not think of Rey. His meeting with Snoke was in half an hour. He could not be divided like this. Once they had dealt with the issue of Hux’s treachery, there would be details of his next mission off-planet to discuss.

He was meant to be leaving on a strike against the Resistance that required his skills as an interrogator. Time was of the essence. First Order intelligence suggested that leaders in the Resistance’s military intelligence network were meeting with their wider contacts from the neutral and Outer Rim zones. They had a hidden meeting place among the space junk circling Endor, and Kylo intended to test how well he could detect their living energy and find them using the Force. He would have a chance to capture Resistance members with important knowledge as well as cracking down on operatives that were selling their information to the wrong side. They would be made an example of.

But Spikey….Kylo hit himself on the forehead. He was no closer to finding a solution for her. Unless that man who’d fallen in love with her voice could take her. Kylo could give Spikey to him, and he wouldn’t have freed her, but she’d have a better chance of getting free if she belonged to him. If he didn’t have time to do it before the mission, he’d do it when he got back. It could work. Maybe. 

It was time for his audience with Snoke. He kicked Hux’s mother and removed the Force hold on her. “Up. You’re coming to see Snoke with me.” She stood up stiffly. It cost her some pain to stand as rigidly straight as she did. The Red Lady of Mr’tesk, Spikey had called her. Kylo unsheathed his lightsaber and motioned her to walk ahead of him to the Throne Room. As they passed through the ruins of the Hux apartments her rigid spine betrayed nothing of her thoughts on seeing what Kylo had done to them.


	51. Throne Room

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The confrontation we knew would come sooner or later
> 
>  
> 
> * * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because busy all day.

The guards at the Throne Room doors stiffened with surprise at the sight of the Hux matriarch approaching in her silk nightgown at the point of Kylo’s lightsaber. They said nothing however, and opened the door. Seeing the black space in front of her, she seemed to lose her nerve at last. She tottered to the end of the platform where Snoke held his audiences. Kylo pushed her down onto her knees and they waited for Snoke to appear. Snoke’s music played quietly with many voices like the groans of the damned. 

Snoke’s gigantic hologram appeared. His eyes widened slightly at the sight of Kylo’s prisoner.

“I have found the assassin. Or assassins,” said Kylo. Snoke simply stared at Hux’s mother for what seemed an eternity, his face betraying nothing.

“Dominilla Hux,” said Snoke at last, with a disappointed sigh. “So ambitious for your family.”

“Not just her. They were all in on it! The General, his brother, and that snake you appointed as my mentor! Sara Rem Nata.”

 _“WHAT?”_ Snoke roared. 

“Yes! It turns out that one of the subtle arts she wields is the ability to hide not only her own thoughts and intentions, but other people’s. This family’s been planning to kill me for months, and _I_ was not aware of it and _you,_ Supreme Leader, were not aware of it. Look!” Kylo pulled out the poisoned ear-cuffs. _“These_ were sent to me weeks after the first poisoning attempt. They too were poisoned. It is lucky, again, that I did not wear them.

“And then they blackmailed my room servant into carrying a daisy cutter to kill me with. Sara Rem Nata could hide the intention in her head so she’d be able to do it without her thoughts betraying her. The plan would have succeeded if my servant hadn’t broken the silence they put on her!

“Read this woman’s mind. I’ve broken the block, and you’ll see the truth of what I’m saying. I request permission to send out drones and droids to arrest Sara Rem Nata at once!”

Snoke’s lips drew back in a sour grimace, and his eyes unfocussed for a moment as he invaded Dominilla Hux’s mind. Nothing could withstand such a direct assault from Snoke. The woman curled up on the black marble floor, clutching her head. When Snoke had seen enough, he signalled to Kylo with a finger across across his throat. Kylo beheaded her at one stroke.

“Have the guards take that out, and I will tell Security to have Sara Rem Nata detained. I will wish to question her myself,” said Snoke.

Kylo called in the guards and they hauled out the body. 

“Now, about your mission,” said Snoke when Kylo returned.

“I know my mission! But first I need to get Sara Rem Nata. And then I’ll find General Hux and kill him!” said Kylo.

“You will do no such thing. I can see what you want. You’re imagining some kind of commando mission ending in a bloody showdown on the bridge of the Finalizer. That would make a nice holovid, but it will do nothing for the orderly transfer of power I require for my military machine, Ren. Any attack on the General on his own starship will have all the crew loyal to him turning on you, and in the resulting melee a great deal of my most expensive battleship will be destroyed. Try to be a little less romantic, Ren! Once again my plans have been dealt a blow by the kind of infighting that is the curse of the First Order, but you don’t see me turning it into a three-act revenge drama! Learn from this!”

“I want to cut him to pieces slowly!” Kylo said through clenched teeth.

“You may get your chance later. But your mission is time-critical. You must leave for the Resistance rendezvous point today or you will miss the meeting of all our valuable assets there. I will recall the General and his brother to the Palace when they have finished their mission, and you will find them and their sister waiting for you here, if I am kind enough to let them live that long.

“Now, I have just one more little task for you to complete before you leave,” said Snoke. His image seemed to pulse before Kylo’s eyes. The effects of tiredness, he supposed. He’d barely slept in days, and things seemed to strobe before him. Even here, in the heavy dimness of the Throne Room. Now the Hux affair was over, he felt his energy drain out of him. Snoke was right: Kylo had wanted a grand show of revenge. A triumph. Instead Snoke was jerking his chain again to remind him how short it was.

“Whatever my master commands,” he said. Feeling everything he did was by rote, with no truth in it.

“Execute the girl.”

“What girl?” he asked slowly, his heart shrinking to a pebble inside him. He knew.

“This one. You’ve had your fun. I don’t want you continuing such attachments. They slow you down.”

The big doors creaked open behind him, letting in a slice of cold blue light. No mistaking the silhouette that was being pushed in with rough hands. That plume of fluffy hair. The doors slammed, leaving Spikey alone on the raised walkway to the throne. She stood, looking at him and up at Snoke.

“It’s not an attachment,” said Kylo desperately. “She is a convenience.”

“Well, since she’s caught your assassins, you have no further need of her.”

“I’m allowed to have some pleasures, surely?”

“You’re allowed to have what I say you can have. Or I will begin to question your loyalty,” said Snoke, leaning forward dangerously. “Girl. Come forward so I can see you.”

She moved and something clinked softly. She was in chains. But she could still walk, awkwardly.

When she was about three metres away she stopped. Eyes wide, frightened. She took a deep breath, looked down. Trying to master her fear.

“I thought you’d have better taste,” said Snoke to Kylo.

Spikey was pushing something around with her toe. A little dried-up nosegay of flowers. One of her memorials. It seemed to stir something in her, and she lifted her chin angrily, putting on that look of reckless scorn Kylo knew so well.

“Don’t be so petty. I’m being executed. You don’t have to be nasty about it.”

“Kylo, kill her.” Snoke sounded genuinely angry. Nobody talked to Snoke like that. “NOW!!!” he roared, as Kylo hesitated. He ignited his lightsaber and almost staggered towards Spikey as though impelled by the force of Snoke’s anger. He seemed to have no will in the matter.

He stopped again, held by her look, which was now more sad than frightened. Regretful almost. They stared at one another.

“Which one of us is in chains?” she asked softly. Then she raised her head defiantly to Snoke, and raised her voice too. A little shaky, but clear and loud. 

_“This_ I do of my own free will!”

She shuffled over to Kylo and stepped past the lightsaber, which he held out of the way. She was no threat to him. Snoke leaned forward, curious.

“Don’t lie. You’d run if you could, girl,” said Snoke.

“I still have a choice!” she said. “I choose this!” 

Laying her chained hands on Kylo’s chest, she reached up and kissed him on the mouth. Her lips the warmest thing in this cold horror of a dark chamber. He would never feel such warmth again.

“Be free,” she breathed. Then stood, head bowed, waiting. Making it easier for him. Making herself a sacrifice.

With anguish, he realised he’d done this before. Stood on the narrow walkway in the dark, killed one who offered himself as a willing sacrifice. It had nearly destroyed him. What would happen if he tried to do it again? There was no rage, no passion in him. No power at all. Just a cold sick wretchedness that would never serve to summon the Force.

“Stop making such a drama out of it! Strike!” said Snoke impatiently. “Strike down your compassion! Cut your way free of it so the Dark can receive you!”

 _“I already killed Han and it didn’t work!”_ Kylo screamed. “Why won’t it _work?”_ And suddenly he understood. The knowledge filled him like a great chord of music, all the lost and ugly notes finally rising into consonance. He took a breath like a drowning man flung out of the depths, one who never expected to see the sky again. He whirled around to face Snoke.

“I didn’t just kill Han! He sacrificed himself!”

“Don't lie to yourself. You _killed_ him.”

“I killed him _and he chose it._ His choice outweighed mine!”

“What? Don’t be delusional!” spat Snoke. “You gave yourself to the Dark when you killed Han Solo, and that’s all you’ll ever see!”

“No! He _offered_ me his life. _That_ death could only ever open a way to the Light!”

Kylo saw Snoke’s face twist with incredulity and then rage as the truth of Kylo’s words hit him. He’d been so sure that Kylo was foresworn to the Dark forever, made utterly his tool. So convinced that he had never bothered to look at the state of Kylo’s soul. Never thought to look for the havoc Han’s death had caused. He only ever looked for what he wanted to see, after all.

He’d said himself, “A sacrifice has been made. It will count in the balance”. Thinking of the pain it caused Kylo to kill his father. But it was Han’s sacrifice, not Kylo’s, that had tipped the scales.

Kylo spun around to face Spikey again. 

“Free!” he yelled, and slashed down with his lightsaber. Spikey’s chains fell apart in a shower of sparks. He wasn’t sure if he’d even touched them with the weapon or simply exploded them with the power of one word. She stood frozen with shock as he turned again and shouted to the walls beyond Snoke’s throne, hurling the Force out to the world outside the walls. 

“FREE!” This time the Force came to him with more power than he imagined possible. The back wall exploded outward and light poured into that terrible room. A hard, clean wind from the living world scoured the marble heart of Snoke’s kingdom. Grabbing Spikey’s hand, Kylo ran past Snoke’s hologram towards the sky visible outside. They came through the wall a hundred metres above the ground; the Throne Room’s bricked-up windows had once had a magnificent view of the plains before the Palace. Now they could see the spaceport, with Kylo’s shuttle warming up on the launchpad. Kylo held Spikey for one of the longest Force-leaps in history. She screamed in terror or exhilaration as they plummeted down the face of the Palace towards the landspeeders parked by the front doors. 

“Free!” he shouted at the landspeeders, and five of them ignited their engines in response. He chose the fastest one, jumped with Spikey into the saddle, and exploded the rest with a gesture that ruptured their fuel lines. Dust plumed out in a wide wake as they hurtled towards the waiting shuttle. He reached easily for the mind of the pilot inside, making him open the hatch and start firing the engines. They didn’t even pause as they reached the shuttle. Kylo lifted the landspeeder straight up to the hatch and hit the manual close button as they went through. 

“GO!” he ordered the pilot, who was somewhere above them, his will hostage to Kylo’s Force. The floor of the airlock started to shudder as the engines reached launch readiness. The noise down here was tremendous, nothing like being in the passenger cabin. There was only time to strap Spikey and himself into the emergency restraints before the floor surged beneath them and they felt the shuttle push free of the ground with a mind-numbing roar. Free, magnificently free of gravity. 

The engine sound reduced to a shuddering growl and the ride levelled out. They were leaving the atmosphere already. But they were far from safe: somebody was surely targeting them by now. 

“Pressure suits!” he yelled. Spikey looked confused. He unhitched a pair of pressure suits and she copied his movements to put one on, then followed him up the ladder to the cockpit. The dazed-looking pilot ignored them until Kylo broke his hold on his mind. He looked around in surprise, utterly flummoxed as to why he was in space already and what two people in pressure suits were doing behind him in the cockpit. Kylo gestured for him to get out of the pilot’s seat and jumped in to take the controls. Not a moment too soon. 

Five missiles were snaking towards them from one of the orbital weapon platforms. But with the Force surging through him like this, evading them was no more than a game. Child’s play, even with the balky controls of this shuttle. He could make the missiles target each other too, and he did. The resulting fireworks made him laugh and hit the console with pleasure. Spikey clapped.

“Go you good thing!” shouted Spikey. “Go go go go go!”

And there was the jump gate! He looked over his shoulder at the pilot, who was still too stunned by Kylo’s mental hijacking to even think of opposing them. Spikey had one eye on him, but was mostly absorbed by the sight of the planet’s blue crescent and the sunlit moons. The sun dropped behind the planet in a glory of un-namable colours. More missiles streaked high over the curve of light. Too far away to reach them.

“Any trick to making the jump?” he asked. The pilot shook his head. 

“It’s all pre-set.” A few minutes later they were in, and the stars stretched out and blurred into a tunnel of light. 

“Got a hyperwave comm?”

The pilot pointed, and Kylo set to contacting his command shuttle. It should be waiting on the other side of the jump, but Snoke was no doubt giving the crew other orders. Best to leave the pressure suits on, in case they emerged into normal space in a hail of missiles. 

Kylo punched in his well-known contact code. To his relief, the hypercomm crackled to life immediately and he recognised Sorgen’s voice. He sounded flustered. Kylo identified himself and Sorgen swore. 

“By D’xuun, I’m glad to hear your voice. What’s going on?”

“I can’t tell you over this link. But you will be contacted by parties claiming to carry authority from Snoke and the First Order. Do not, I repeat _do not_ listen to them. Stall for time if you’re given a direct order. In fact, best to cut all communications until I come out of the jump gate!” He turned to the pilot. “How long?” he asked him.

“Two standard hours,” said the pilot. 

_“Exact time!”_

“Two hours, six minutes and forty three seconds,” said the pilot.   
“Log that,” said Kylo to Sorgen. “Drop out of hyperspace, ready for a snatch and grab. In the meantime, talk to nobody. I’ll explain when I get in.” He cut the link. He could only hope they still had some personal loyalty to him.


	52. Space Opera

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Escape!
> 
> * * *

“Get your helmet on,” said Kylo. They were a few minutes away from completing the jump to the rendezvous point with Kylo’s command shuttle.

“Why?” asked Spikey.

“I don’t know what will be waiting for us when we get there. My ship, I hope. But it might not be alone. I’d rather we didn’t waste time mating up airlocks.”

Spikey waited strapped to the crash padding of the top hatch airlock. Kylo was piloting. The shuttle pilot, who had hardly said a word to them, sat in the co-pilot seat. Spikey heard the chimes to mark the drop out of hyperspace. Kylo must have commed his ship as soon as they arrived, because she could hear him shouting something. Then he was up the ladder and throwing the switch to cycle the airlock. A moment later he had Spikey by the hand and they were launching themselves into space.

It was a good thing Spikey didn’t have time to think, because the moment they left the shuttle’s artificial gravity she was filled with terror. Terror of the vacuum, of the nothingness around them, and her complete lack of control. Then the command shuttle swept over them and she was afraid it was going to collide with them. Kylo had some sort of hand-held jet and was guiding them expertly between the two craft. Maybe aided by the Force. She couldn’t tell. It was all a blur. She tried not to make things harder by flailing about.

Spikey was sobbing with relief as they jetted into the airlock hatch with its brightly-lit interior and its artificial gravity and the thick hatch that shut out the night. There was no time to enjoy it though. Kylo was already cycling the airlock and swarming up the ladder to the command shuttle’s small bridge. Spikey followed as fast as she could. She could hear a babble of voices. Kylo’s voice a low rumble, urgent. She swung off the ladder and along a corridor into the bridge where Kylo’s crew, the same three men she’d met before, were were clustering around him on the pilot’s console. Morse looked over his shoulder at Spikey in surprise.

“What’s she doing here?”   
“No time. We have to get out of here,” said Kylo.

Unlike the planet shuttle, Kylo’s ship had big viewscreens all around the bridge. Spikey could see the little shuttle below them, turning to re-engage with the return hyperdrive gate. There was the crescent of a blue gas giant which somehow in her panic she had failed to notice before. And then the city-sized Finalizer blinked out of hyperspace into existence, shockingly close. A flying wall of ramparts and gun turrets and a thousand windows of enemies looking out at them.

“Hux you bastard!” snarled Kylo. The throats of the ventral cannons were aimed at them, a deadly blue glow rising in each one as it turned to point at them. Kylo’s men seemed frozen in shock, but not him. He moved with an inhuman speed, launching a fusillade at the gigantic ship’s weapons ports with one hand and throwing the hyperdrive switch with the other. The stars stretched and blurred, and they were gone.

There was a shocked silence.

“Hux and I are no longer on the same team,” said Kylo.

“Hux always wanted to be Snoke’s favourite. I suppose he’s happy now,” Spikey clarified. Sorgen and Morse looked at each other. Deepal had swung into the navigator seat and was swearing at the readouts.

“So, we’re …..” Morse trailed off.

“You’re on team Kylo,” said Kylo. “For now.”

“Where the hell are we going?” asked Deepal. “I didn’t put in a course.”

"It doesn’t matter,” said Kylo. “Drop out of hyperspace and find out where we are. We’ll take it from there.”

* * *

 

Now it was Spikey who had nightmares, and woke whimpering in Kylo’s arms while he murmured reassurance to her. She dreamed of being shot at; of launching from one airlock to another, but her pressure suit failed before she reached safety and she died gasping lungfuls of nothing. Or she hung above the blue disc of a planet, then realised it was no disc but a trick of perspective. The circular blue throat of a laser cannon heating up to annihilate them all.

She would wake fully and feel how securely she was held against his broad chest. She would reach for his arms and lock her fingers around his biceps, feeling the amazing strength and size of them. She had not felt so protected, so safe, since she was a small child.

But she knew it was an illusion. Without any clear decision being taken, their talk over the past few days had drifted from the search for Rey to more disturbing quests. Finding Snoke’s physical body, his actual location. Or seeing if there was any truth to the legends of the mysterious planet Mortiss and its Force Users. Going to Moraband. On such ventures, Spikey knew she could only be a hindrance. From time to time, even she could feel Snoke’s hatred lashing through the ship as he tried to regain control of Kylo. Kylo would go very still, a statue. Not a tomb carving this time, but an emperor in triumph, eyes aglow with the joy of a battle he was clearly winning.

Uprooting Snoke from his soul must have hurt abominably, but Kylo said only, “I thought he loved me. If I ever meet, him I will make him pay.” Buoyed up by thoughts of revenge. Spikey wanted to be nowhere near that showdown, if it ever happened. She’d be splattered into a smear on the wall long before the outcome could be decided.

After a few days of random hyperspace hops, they were settled above the Galactic plane, looking down on it. It was a lonely and beautiful place, high above the great jewelled swirl that held everything they’d ever seen and known.

Spikey sat in the co-pilot chair fiddling with the comms system, trying to wrench it away from First Order channels. She succeeded at last, and the cockpit suddenly rang with some wild vocal celebration. Spikey beat the rhythm loudly on her armrests.

“What did you do to the comms?” yelled Sorgen from the next cabin.

“I thought we weren’t listening to the First Order any more,” she yelled back. The music calmed down, and Spikey began to listen with a sense of reverence. She’d found a Fariolanti broadcast, and she felt she recognised the leading voice. She started putting in her own harmonies. Kylo came in and swung himself into the pilot’s seat next to her to listen. He brushed his fingers idly over the viewscreen controls, and their view of the Galaxy changed from visible light to ultraviolet to infra-red to radio, and various composites of them all. After a while Spikey interrupted her singing, pointing at a spot on the screen.

“Look, see that little puff of dust cloud that rears up there, about half-way out from the Core? Looks a bit like a head? It’s lit up with violet light….that’s a streamer from a black hole near Fariol. Lucky it’s not pointing at us Fariolantis or we’d be fried. As it is I guess we’ll have to look for a new planet in a few billion years, huh?”

“You’d like to go back there, wouldn’t you?” said Kylo very softly. Spikey curled up in a ball and pretended to think, though she already knew her answer. She sneaked a look at Kylo. He was staring at his hands, lips parted, waiting. Sad, too. She stared at him more boldly.

Finally he raised his eyes to meet hers. He had long since lost that flat black stare that saw her only as a thing. Part of the Palace furniture, and an unsatisfactory part at that. Lately she had seen little of the thin-lipped domineering glare that had once been his dominant expression. Without it, he often seemed unsure how to make eye contact. It was unusual to see those eyes, a warm brown now, staring into hers. Looking into her, and allowing himself to be seen. She could tell that it was difficult for him to trust the current of sympathy that ran between them when he did.

“I think that’s the right thing to do,” she said. “I don’t think I’m cut out to be your sidekick for the adventures you’re planning. I hate being shot at. You need somebody that can protect themselves….protect herself.”

He nodded, accepting the truth of that. But not happy about it, and more than Spikey was.

“I’m not abandoning you. I’m…I’ll make a safe place somewhere. For you to come back to, some day, if you want.” She looked away, unwilling to let him see tears.

“When the war is over,” he said. For the Galaxy was sliding once more into war; the news they picked up on the comms revealed the gathering momentum of chaos, no matter which side was speaking.

“It’ll end sooner if you and Rey take Snoke down. I wish I still had my chitarra,” she said, changing the subject away from one that frightened her too much. “I could make up songs about your heroic deeds.”

“We’ll have to go to Fariol to get a new one, then.” She looked at him. He was smiling at her almost tenderly.

“I would love that. I have so much to learn, and I could learn it there.”

They sat in silence a while, listening to the music still playing on the hypercomm.

“I’ll miss you,” he said, almost too quietly to hear.

“Yeah. I’ll miss you more.” She bumped his shoulder with her fist. “Hey, you’ll find Rey. She’s looking for you too.”

“Surely,” Kylo said. “And then, who knows? She wants to change things, I think. I like that idea. We’ll be Grey Jedi or something, whatever that means.”

“Rainbow Jedis,” said Spikey. Kylo snorted, and one end of his long mouth twisted up in another smile.

“I wish I could rescue Lissa and Andala and the people stuck at the Palace,” Spikey said.

“Maybe we’ll pay the Palace a visit together when I’ve finished with Snoke. But if we can’t do that, I’ll come looking for you. I’ll want to hear what you sound like after you’ve had a teacher.”

“I’ll sing for you. Always, wherever you are. You freed me. And if you come, I can feed you, too.”

Though she had a feeling that if he did, he’d have Rey with him. That was an interesting prospect. Brave, beautiful Rey paired with Spikey’s soon-to-be-ex space boyfriend. That would hurt, but if enough time passed, it would surely be worth the pain just to see him again and know that he was okay.

* * *

In any case, the command shuttle was too small for five people for any length of time. They were constantly in each other’s way, there was not enough privacy, there always seemed to be somebody in the refresher whenever anyone was in a hurry to use it.

Sorgen, Deepal and Morse still didn’t know what to make of Spikey. She was apparently Kylo’s girlfriend, unimaginable as that seemed. So probably a fearsome Force-user of some kind. But then, just as obviously, she was nothing of the sort. Just a cheerful, friendly, funny woman that could not possibly be Kylo’s girlfriend, for all that they slept in the same cabin. It was awkward.

“I never got my manumission papers,” she said, as they perched on various furniture, eating a meal together.

“We can do better than that,” said Kylo. “Morse, check the files and see if we can draw up some honourable discharge papers for Spikey. Throw in some character references and some documents detailing her sterling work for the First Order.”

“In the Finalizer’s kitchens, say. I’m a bit short for a stormtrooper,” said Spikey.

Kylo looked over Morse’ shoulder and pointed to something on the screen. “There. Covert Ops. the Knights of Ren used to generate a lot of fake papers for undercover work. Make three or four aliases for each of you. These should be clean — they won’t trigger any alerts from the First Order or the New Republic.”

“Bloody paperwork,” grumbled Morse. “I thought I could get away from that if I left the First Order.”

“You haven’t left the First Order. I just kidnapped you. You can go back if you like. I need you to take Spikey down to the planet surface anyway.”

Morse shrugged noncommittally, but he was already punching away at the nearest console, looking for a link to the files he needed. It took a while, but finally he had them up on a screen, all beautifully emblazoned with First Order insignias.

“I’ll sign them,” said Kylo, holding a screen stylus.

“Won’t that trigger more alerts?” asked Spikey.

“I’m signing as Petty Officer Bermilan Rees, who is a real person that signs these discharge papers every day. And there’ll be a little glitch in the chip that means the data doesn’t go where it’s routed anyway. Now, how do you spell your name?”

“P —S…”

“How does _that_ spell ‘Spikey’?”

“Spikey’s not my real name. People couldn’t pronounce it and I got sick of being teased. They used to call me Piss-eye Key.” She started spelling it out again, and then paused. Kylo gave her a questioning look, when she didn’t move. She was frowning.

“Snoke. How angry is he going to be about me?”

“Ah. Very.” He sucked his teeth with a hiss, and looked at her. “Bounty hunters. You’d do best to go with an alias from the very start.”

Spikey struggled to think of some name she would even remember. “I had a doll called Korimako when I was little. I used to play that I was her, and she was a famous singer. It feels like a lucky name to me.”

“Korimako. That’s nice,” he said absently. Girls and their dolls were probably an alien world to him. “What was she, a little princess or something?”

“No, a stuffed bird.”

Kylo burst out laughing for some reason. “That’s perfect.” He wrote in the name, thought for a long time, then signed under the discharge officer’s name with a flourish. Spikey squinted at the screen, puzzled.

“That’s not how you spell….” she began. He put his hand gently over her mouth. His other hand hit the “enact” button and the console spat out a small metal cylinder with the data on it. He wiped the screen and handed her the cylinder.

“Think up a few more names for yourself, and we’ll make some different papers for each alias,” said Kylo. A few minutes later Spikey was holding more identity chips. She looked at them sadly. Life on the run didn’t appeal to her. Always wondering if Snoke had set a bounty hunter after her, if she’d wake up on some random morning to find a blaster pointing at her face.

“Hold out your other hand,” he said. She did, and he poured in a clutch of credit chips. Spikey swiped her fingers over them the way she’d seen people do, to see how much they were worth. A large number lit up on the first chip. Spikey felt like a fool. “Is that a lot of….can I buy a lot with that?” she asked.

Deepal looked over her shoulder. “Put it this way, you won’t have to work for quite a while.” Kylo elbowed him out of the way.

“I had them lying around the cabin. It’s not like I ever had to spend my own money,” he said, sounding embarrassed.

 

* * *

 

And then, all too soon, it was time to go. The ship would blaze into orbit around Fariol just long enough for Deepal, Morse, Sorgen and Spikey to leave for the planet’s surface in an escape pod. The men were staying on the planet too, having decided the First Order was unlikely to welcome them back with open arms and a campfire singalong. Kylo gave them enough credit chips to give them a new start, as well as orders to protect Spikey or else he’d be back to find out why.

They were nearly there and the clock was ticking down to the moment when they dropped out of hyperspace. The men made soldier’s farewells to Kylo, saluting him with a wary respect. They didn’t know what they had got themselves into with Kylo on the run, but they seemed to wish him well. Kylo respected that, and took their salutes with courteous gravity. “Go well, whatever the hell you’re doing,” said Morse gruffly. The others nodded. Then they waited to see how Kylo and Spikey would say goodbye to each other. Kylo’s lips quirked, and he jerked a thumb at the escape pod.

“Get in. We’re not putting on a show for you.”

But in the end, Kylo and Spikey only stood in a long embrace, as they had done once before, nose to nose, breathing each other’s breath, until the bell chimed for the drop out of hyperspace.

“Psyche. My name is Ben Solo.”

“Ben. Be free.”

“Be free.”

One last, fierce squeeze, then she leapt lightly into the escape pod, buckling in as Sorgen thew the eject lever. Their craft was flung into space under the great blue belly of the planet. They seemed to fall up, up, up towards it until it filled the tiny viewport. Then Sorgen did something on the control panel and she felt the long tail of fire behind them, thrusting them into the planet’s atmosphere. Voices came in over the comm guiding them in with the familiar accents of Fariol. Spikey was home, full of tears and song and a grin as wide as the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Posting early because busy all day


	53. When I am Fit to Speak of Love

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kylo, alone
> 
> * * *

Freedom was strange. To have no commander but himself! He was being reborn in this ship, with so much time to think. Not all of his thoughts were dark, and he was finding the strength to bear what he could and bury what he could not. He recalled his father’s voice saying “We want you back.” He imagined a thousand things he could have said, and imagined saying them to his mother instead. Some days, away from Snoke’s influence, he could almost accept Rey’s belief, which she relayed to him, that Leia wanted to see her son again. In his head, their conversations went many different ways. Some happy, some sad. Gradually a little less painful, as the days went on.

He was alone with his thoughts except for when he and Rey linked, or when Snoke found a way into his mind. Snoke was sometimes threatening, and then Kylo threw him off easily. Other times he acted like a sad and kindly parent bewildered by Kylo’s betrayal. Or he tried to fill Kylo with shame. _You are hated by everyone. You can never go back. I was the only one who saw what you could become. You’ve made a mistake, but it’s not too late to return to me. I will see you exalted above all others. Rey, your family, ordinary people everywhere, they will only shun you and hate you. Don’t listen to their lies. They fear your power and want you dead._

But Rey knew what he had done, leaving Snoke. He felt her approval and her hope. He cared about both of those things, he realised.

Linking with Rey was not always easy. She was more elusive than before. He had the sense that she was involved in some personal quest regarding her past as well as concealing her own search for Snoke. Both things disturbed her badly and left her off-balance and unwilling to link with him. But sometimes they were both bored, and just talked. As he had told her once, they were the only people in the Galaxy who had the Force in this way.

 _If we meet, we can hunt down Snoke together,_ he thought.

 _I’m not ready._ She didn’t say why, but he wondered if she would not feel whole and strong until she got her memories back. Whether strong enough to face him or Snoke, he wasn’t sure.

Talking to Rey, it became clear that Snoke’s recent near-absence from Kylo’s life had a lot to do with an obsession with Rey. Kylo had become his Plan B: useful only as a tool for finding Rey, and if Snoke found Rey first on his own, then Kylo was of little interest. Rey offered him this knowledge rather nervously, fearing his reaction. And it was true, it hurt. But it was surprising how much hurt he could stand lately.

_Rey, where are you, Rey?_

Not on this planet, the latest in his search. A cloud-girdled sapphire, this one, alive with creatures who rode its great ocean swells for much of the year. But no Rey and no Luke. It had been weeks. Boring weeks, mostly, as he skimmed the Galaxy looking and listening to all that happened, both with the Force and on the comms nets. There were moments of excitement when he risked stopping to refuel and resupply the command shuttle. Sometimes tripping the net of spies Snoke had out for him, and tweaking his own nets. He wanted to find Snoke too. That knowledge would be a worthy gift for Rey, and for Leia.

He wanted to find Hux as well, but pitting his command shuttle against the Finalizer was not a real option yet.

It wasn’t this blue world that was occupying Kylo’s thoughts right now, but quite a different one far away behind him. Since sending Spikey there, he’d been curious about it. Fariol’s broadcasts took up a decent amount of space on the network; its culture was in demand.

Perhaps ninety percent of what came out of it was the kind of popular fluff that the First Order sneered at when it did not ignore it entirely. But Fariol’s culture also had deeper currents. A thousand voices arguing and offering ideas, discussing history and society and the arts. A world he had never encountered before. One that politics ignored, and certainly one that Snoke would loathe. Kylo listened to broadcasts from Fariol all the more for that. Beamed across parsecs, he heard the old Thenorian tragedies brought to life in the greatest theatres of the age. Often they were long, rancorous tales of murder and betrayal. How the mighty fell, how the Furies were roused and sometimes placated. He realised now that the old tales were full of people he knew only too well, though they were centuries dead.

One evening he heard a reedy-voiced man declaiming some long saga of father against son, brother against brother, in language that rose and fell like waves breaking on a pitiless shore. It took his breath away, and he understood that he, Kylo Ren, was not the first to suffer this pain. To suffer, to survive, and perhaps transcend.

He heard somebody sing that famous Lament to Faisán that he’d heard Spikey sing once.

_A child rode out one midsummer morning, the sun blazed in his hair_  
_A man returned with the autumn leaves, blood on his hands_  
_All the rains of winter will not wash out my heart…._

Kylo understood what his own mother must have felt, must still feel. The knowledge was like a punch in the guts. He also understood that until he knew it, he had been no more than a child.

Distant voices curated fragments of the past and treasures picked up by the farjumper ships. Tales of long-vanished empires. What universe was this that they sought to rule, he wondered. Enough people in history had tried, and the wreckage of their ambitions strewed not only this galaxy, but apparently all others. Leaving behind only tales and songs. Songs Spikey had sung him.

Spikey was hopeless with technology, but the men who’d gone down with her to Fariol sent him encrypted messages. He’d asked them to keep an eye on her, and they had enough residual loyalty to do so. In any case, she was their guide to life in their new home. Knowing Spikey, she’d probably sniffed out where there were good times to be had. They seemed to be enjoying it well enough, though whether it compensated for losing their careers in the First Order, they were too polite to say.

Deepal reported that Spikey was doing well, playing in small clubs, and pestering the great fariolanas for music lessons. One had recommended her for a troupe doing a tour of Resistance bases. The little traitor, he said. Kylo guessed he was joking.

The next message said “Listen!” and included a time and a frequency.

Kylo only had to hear two deep belling chords of the chitarra to know exactly who was playing them, and so it was no surprise to hear her voice again - that voice like burnt honey, like fire, like smoke. He laughed aloud, breaking his long silence. _That did not take you long!_ he thought. He imagined her, with her hands moving unconsciously over the fretboard and her head held high, staring into that shining distance where she saw the music. That place of memory and hope, joy and pain. He could hear a new power in her voice.

We are all changed, he thought. Spikey now, on the road to fame, perhaps. He’d broken her heart and it had only made her stronger. And Rey had said the same thing. All the joy, all the love, all the sadness had made her world bigger. _Time and war could take everything and everyone from me, and yet in the end, my heart will only be enlarged._

And now, who knew what greater transformations Rey was going through? Whether she had embraced Luke’s Jedi training, or whether she was on some road of her own now? He sensed the changes in her, even if he could not see them clearly.

Rey had spoken to Spikey in her mind. Spikey had loved her light and her courage, and her songs reflected that back to him so he could see it as clearly as she did.

_But her, in all things, always, like the sun_  
_I know my way by the shadows I cast…._

Spikey’s voice was soaring in his ears like some furnace of possibility. Kylo saw Rey walking towards him in that light: once his sworn enemy, certainly his match and peer, maybe his future.

But he went to her now no longer as anyone’s child or anyone’s tool, but as his own man.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> * * *  
> Tamám shud: It is done. 
> 
> * * *  
> For people who have been broken, love can be difficult. I would like to finish this by sharing a poem my father wrote, for he understood as well as anyone what a difficult and fumbling journey it can be.
> 
> Poem for Magda
> 
> When I am fit to speak of love the words will come  
> as easily as wheat puts forth its ample grain  
> or sunlight skips brights stones across a river.  
> My tongue thus far is husked and makes harsh sound  
> and shall not sing until I hear the growth of grain,  
> until I hear your name in all things blessed forever.
> 
> When I am fit to speak of love you may be past  
> your crest of youthful movement and your grace of line.  
> It will be late to praise you, late to flatter  
> myself by implication, finder of your eyes.  
> And there will be no need to find new ways  
> to ask or tell each other what’s the matter.
> 
> When I am fit to speak of love will be a day  
> of neither signs nor revelation. It might occur  
> some time when sleeping at my side I’ll feel you cry  
> and wake to hands that make your dream not true,  
> some moment when you’re ironing or touch your hair —  
> simple and warm as clothes fresh-folded on a chair.
> 
> Gordon Challis
> 
> * * *
> 
> It's been a trip! I hope you've enjoyed it, and I appreciate every one of you that stuck it out for so many chapters.


End file.
